The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya
by Arkytal
Summary: Haruhi gets mad at her toaster, which subconsciously makes everything steampunk. And somehow makes magic a thing. Shenanigans ensues.
1. Relevance

The Vapor Of Haruhi Suzumiya

Three days ago, the subject known as Haruhi Suzumiya encountered a stream of examples that led her to curse the majority of electrical devices around us. She was burned by her malfunctioning toasting device, after it propelled a severely over-heated piece of grain into her hand. She was late for school when her time-keeping device failed to produce a shrill tone at the exact moment in time that she was required to rise from her slumber to begin her day. She tripped down the stairs due to a semi-autonomous machine that was cleaning her floors depleted itself of electrical power and had stopped its cleaning operation on the threshold of her staircase. In addition, multiple subsystems within her living space malfunctioned, reducing the livability of her abode considerably. The electric water heater became infested with dirt and various insect remains, leading her to only be able to obtain cold water for her daily cleanings, and scalding hot water for her drinking purposes. By the end of these three days ,Haruhi was hating the core fabric of the society that humans have built for themselves.

As she left the SOS Brigade today, I was able to determine her desires and intentions, and was justifiably concerned by them. She had a desire that reached down into the inner soul of her being, the being that was known as God. This desire, this wish, was nothing less than humankind never having discovered electricity in its current form. She was first to leave on this day, so I quickly confided what I knew in the other members of the Brigade.

At this point Asahina Mikuru attempted to contact the future, but was met with the extremely discomforting result of not being able to find any point in the future past midnight tonight. Koizumi called his contact on the spot, not bothering to hide or otherwise conceal his call, and made his organization aware that a large disturbance was occurring within Haruhi Suzumiya. The esper on the receiving end of the call was only able to reply that several large Closed Spaces had appeared across the world, but none of them contained any Shinjin borne from miss Suzumiya's unconscious desires. Instead, monstrosities of brass and copper pipes were forming from the very essence of the space around it, engulfing everything in the Closed Space, at which point the Closed Space collapses and disappears.

The Data Integrated Thought Entity has not been in contact with myself for over a week. I kept this fact to myself, as it would not do any good to inform the others of something that would only be another sign of a cataclysmic event, at least for human beings. Although I am merely a human data interface, I have begun to think of myself as a human, as I have gathered more than enough unique experiences to make conscious decisions outside of what the DITE commands me to perform. In fact, a lesser interface would simply go into a coma-like state of unmovingness if its connection were severed. I was unaffected. I am unique, among all the interfaces. I can survive, which is the trait that I would most determine to be what makes me human.

I listened to the others' theories on how to combat this threat after Koizumi planned to meet with members of his Agency the following day. I gave my opinion about how this correlated to her new-found hatred of technological devices, to which they agreed. However, it was Miss Asahina who shed any form of relevance of the brass and copper beings that had appeared in the Closed Space. Of course, this was after she was able to rid herself of her tears, convinced that the inability to contact the future was merely a temporary inconvenience. I said nothing to dissuade this notion.

Miss Asahina remarked that Haruhi Suzumiya was quite involved with an RPG game lately, called Final Fantasy XIII. The inhabitants of this game lived in a time where magic co-existed with technology, but electricity was rarely used. Airships, brass, copper, and steam were common elements in virtually everything they used. I quickly referenced the Wikipedia page concerning the subject, as while I played many video games, I was not fond of RPG's. I quickly analyzed the information concerning the setting and technologies in this fantasy environment, relaying to the others what the most likely course of action Haruhi's subconscious would take.

"The most likely outcome of this situation is that Miss Suzumiya will change the entire world, and we will become the main heroes of the environment described in this game. I will be able to remember any actions that occur between now and then, and in actuality, the only one among us who will not notice the change in the existence of the world is Haruhi Suzumiya herself."

After recovering from the fact that I spoke more than 10 words at a time, they slowly agreed, with Koizumi suggesting that we all head home in preparation for what will most likely be a very tumultuous time. As we departed for our respective living quarters, Kyon remarked to me that it would be just like Haruhi to put us in place of fictional characters when she was bored. To this I replied that this was being done due to the fact that she was mad about the technologies around us, not the state of perpetual boredom she constantly found herself in. This would lead to different, and hopefully not calamitous, results. I also remarked that small changes were already beginning to occur on the plane of existence we were on. Kyon sweatdropped at this statement, but remained silent. We bid our farewells to each other, and headed for our perspective dwellings. Once I was settled in for the night with a lengthy and challenging piece of Latin literature, I focused on the environment around myself. I did not have the help of the Data Integrated Thought Entity to give me all of the data required in my tasks, so I reached out mentally to obtain it myself.

I could feel the very essence of the materials that made up the fabric of existence changing. The properties of common element s were slowly shifting in their present forms, attaining new properties that were unknown in nature. This puzzled me, as the environment that we were assuming Haruhi was imagining being in still had a common understanding of nature and animals. These changes lead me to believe that the subject known as Haruhi Suzumiya still had several surprises for us before we discovered what situation we were in once midnight comes and goes.

The only extreme change I was able to feel before being swallowed by the endless maelstrom that occurred at midnight was that Thomas Edison never existed, and that DC was an inefficient means of transmitting electricity that was not used. These were the last pieces of data that I was able to gather before I was forced into the state of unwakingness known as sleep as humans referred to it. And let it be said that when I awoke from my unnatural slumber, the matter of sleep was the least of my concerns. This lay on the world that Haruhi Suzumiya had inadvertently created and thrust us into.

It was not a joyous, happy, or even organized one. It was one of uncertainty and fear, and the smog that hung over the city was an uncanny metaphor of the state of society around us.

**A/N: Hehe, VAPOR. Get it? It's a Steampunk pun. I had this idea suddenly while browsing through wallpapers and listening to the Living Tombstone's mix of Dischord. I'm pretty excited about this concept and am already working on the 2nd chapter. No, the Final Fantasy reference doesn't mean anything to the plot, and yes, it's steampunk. Mostly from Yuki's POV. Please review and tell me what you think!**


	2. Astonishment

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 2: Astonishment

There was no doubt that the room I awoke in was the same one that I fell asleep in, but to call it the same place would be erroneous. Instead of the traditional Japanese environment, the walls consisted of a material that at first glance appeared to be a form of stone, but upon closer inspection, was actually a polymer made out of a fibrous material and chunks of stone. This puzzled myself, as such a material would not stay together firmly under the circumstances it was present in. This was only the first of the many changes I observed within the room.

The dark wooden floors were tarnished, as though heavy metal objects had been moved across them a multitude of times The windows appeared to be several inches thick, and were slightly translucent, with the flow of air changing the shade of color present in the window. As a cold draft wisped throughout the room, the window took on a blue hue, while it was a slight salmon color before. I was able to see a pair of gloves of a fine leather laying on the nightstand aside my futon, which I promptly put on, admiring the craftsmanship, while simultaneously noting that modern sewing patterns were not used in the manufacturing of the gloves.

The most distinct difference was the lack of lights in this particular room. There were several candles unlit and stacked on a shelf that had not been present the previous day, yet when I stepped into the main living room, I saw light fixtures as normal, despite, instead of small light switches, there were bulky levers next to valves, which all sat at their minimal level of reading. I experimented with a light, moving the switch to a halfway position, whilst the valve emitted a low sound, as the room was slowly bathed in a dim yellow light. I stretched my consciousness towards the light to obtain data about the emplacement, when I became aware of a unique aspect about the timeline we found ourselves in. The current being emitted by this light was Alternate Current. In the timeline from which Haruhi Suzumiya is from, the usage of Alternate Current fell out of favor in the early 1900's when the American inventor Thomas Edison pushed the Direct Current system heavily, leading it to catch on throughout the entirety of the planet Earth. It appeared that Miss Suzumiya's antics has brought about a plausible change in history that had a long-lasting effect.

I was interrupted in the midst of my ponderous thoughts by the realization that I was wearing a uniform that was anything but uniform. I am used to dealing with superhuman situations at any time, so it was almost expected to not realize my odd attire when it did not directly affect my situation. I was clad in a partial suit of armor, mainly pauldrons which dwarfed my shoulders and leggings which, while proportionate to my slight frame, were still bulky and mismatched. They appeared to have been smelted out of multiple different materials, and welded together piece by piece. My shirt was similar to the North High uniform, albeit made of a much thicker material. The cardigan had become a small cloak which was draped around my shoulders, the familiar brown color a soothing thing among a myriad of unfamiliar concepts.

As I became used to my new uniform, I heard my phone ring. It was a rotary phone that was in the room when I moved into it at the beginning of my three years of stasis, before joining the SOS Brigade. I was unaware that it was a fully functioning phone. I answered it, allowing the other party to speak first.

"Yuki, it's Kyon. This is just perfect. I woke up in enough armor to face a dragon with, and my sister is playing with throwing knives like they're just a thing. How's your morning been?"

His snide tone led me to believe he was approaching the situation with much less of a curious undertone than I was.

"I appear to be wearing some form of protection as well, though not as cumbersome as yours appears to be. I can see the skyline from my window, and it appears that we were wrong in our deductions concerning miss Suzumiya's unconscious manipulations to the universe. I do not have a connection with the Data Integrated Thought Entity, and I very much doubt that Miss Asahina will be able to contact her employers."

He sighed deeply, then looked at the calender hanging above his bed.

"Well, we appear to have missed a couple of days, as it's Saturday. Do you want to meet up outside your apartment to get to know our "new" home?"

His malice was evident as I could hear the air quotes through the phone line, which, I must admit, was extremely high quality despite appearing to be a hodge-podge of scattered components.

"That is an amiable idea, however; I will attempt to contact Miss Asahina and Mister Koizumi so we may gather information about the changes in the environment as a group. In our unknowledgeable state, it is imperative that we do not become distracted and allow our minds to wander."

While speaking quickly, I cast an eye into the room that, prior to the change in this timeline, was a library of sorts. I turned my back to it to concentrate upon Kyon's response.

"Alright, I'll meet you at your apartment in a little bit, because I doubt we'll be able to recognize any of the local landmarks, if they even still exist."

He hung up with that statement, too busy contemplating his situation and pulling a knife out of the seam separating his pauldron from his chest-plate, scolding his sister about using knives in the house. She replied in confusion that just the day before he had told her to keep trying, for she'd make a perfect hunter. He only shrugged at this statement, before leaving the house to proceed to Yuki's apartment complex.

I took a quick look at every object in the room, not wanting to believe what I was observing. Instead of books in the room, there were a great many weapons. The majority of the weapons were swords, of varying size, shape, length, width, hilt length, and color. Several guns laid interspersed among the collection of swords. Blunderbuss', duck's foot pistols, muskets, Winchester shotguns, and also some examples she could not name despite the vast store of knowledge she had on such a subject. They appeared to be used as a sword, with a graceful, curved blade, yet affixed to the hilt were barrels, and there was a pump-action on the upper portion of the hilt.

It was a gunblade. She took the object from its perch and admired it from every angle, taking note of the unfimiliar angles at which the rifling of the barrel was chambered at. Despite having a diameter akin to a large buckshot round, the small tag attached to it simply read: 1953 NATO issued .30-30 gunblade "John-S" class.

I quickly returned it to its berth, high on the wall, and set off to contact the remaining members of the SOS Brigade. Haruhi Suzumiya would not be approached until school on the following Monday. She would not be able to remember any of the changes which had occurred, so it was best to see how she would attempt to interact with them, rather than forcing a situation that would arouse suspicion within miss Suzumiya, which could end in the abrupt discontinuation of existence for the human race.

Surprisingly, I was able to contact Miss Asahina with the number that was previously assigned to her cell phone. I told her of the current situation and that myself and Kyon were meeting at my apartment to explore the city, and asked if she would like to join us. I also asked her what kind of apparel she woke up in, as I was curious how this new version of reality affected each of us.

"O...Okay. This place is kind of scary; I don't wanna have to wander around here any longer than I have to without you guys. The clothing? At first I thought I fell asleep in one of those costumes Miss Suzumiya makes me wear, but then I saw I had a huge metal sword in a sheathe on my back when I looked in the mirror. I didn't even notice it at first!" Her nervous tone was apparent, and apparently she too was wearing some unique clothing, and was also the proud owner of some very mysterious weaponry. I bid her goodbye as she had made no haste in gathering herself to proceed to my home.

Koizumi was next. He was raised on the fourth ring, answering with his generic, polite, almost groveling, greeting.

"Well hello there Miss Nagato. Don't you find this environment fascinating?"

I must diverge from my retelling of recent events to tell you this: One of the few things I am capable of being annoyed by in any way is that eye-smile that Itsuki Koizumi uses on most occasions. Only through the use of data acquisition was I able to ascertain the true nature of his personality, after which I grew much more lax while being in his presence. Despite his constant musings and philosophical questions, he is almost always in agreement with Miss Asahina. Therefore I need not worry about what his employers will desire him to perform. While he may not always agree with the Data Integrated Thought Entity, he will not purposely reveal our presence of who we truly are around Miss Suzumiya.

"It is interesting from a technological standpoint, and possibly a historical and political standpoint, but the most urgent question I have for you is what type of North High uniform did you find yourself in when you were roused this morning?"

He chuckled before replying in a generally engaging fashion.

"Why, I am dressed as Robin Hood of course. In all seriousness, I have a large wooden bow hanging on my door and a quiver of arrows affixed to the rear of the shirt I'm wearing. The shirt is a light cotton material on the inside, and has a chain mail layer on the outside. My pants are apparently a polyester bonded with a material similar to felt with nylon coating the interior of the leggings. My shoes are knee high leather boots, and a small shield similar in style to European bucklers was resting next to my shoes, and affixes nicely to a slot built into the wrist of my shirt, which is reinforced with some metal sewn into the shirt."

His detailed description led me to believe that he had already analyzed the majority of the changes in his own dwelling. I invited Koizumi to join us in exploring our new surroundings, which he promptly agreed and left immediately.

We were in a unique place, to be sure, though the one object in my sleeping quarters that caught my eye was a thin volume that had the word SOS Brigade. Picking it up, the book appeared to be written in romanji, but was written in Western style, from left to right.

It appeared to be a set of guidelines about who you may and may not attack, maim, kill, and otherwise harm in the areas around North High. This rule is superseded with the authority of multiple Untouchables in agreement. On the "Untouchable" list were the members of the SOS brigade, along with Miss Asahina's ancestor, Tsuruya, and a few other people from the school. A single line was written under the "Absolutely Touchable" category: Everyone else. And underneath that, with a disturbing realization, was the name Asakura Ryoko, written in English text.

I slipped the small book into my knapsack, which was akin to an oversized purse slung over one shoulder, and grabbed a large broadsword for protection, surprised I was able to heft it easily, before sitting in my sitting room with the front door open, waiting for the other members of the SOS Brigade to arrive, so our investigations could begin.

I was worried on several levels about many things by this point, and beginning to suspect that this was an entirely different timeline, or possibly a recreation of the universe entirely. This may have been similar to the event which caused the world to come to fruition in the form which it did three years ago. Perhaps in this timeline, wherever THIS TIMELINE is, that event never occurred, and we all met naturally. This is an almost impossible situation in relative chances of occurrence, but nothing is impossible when in the presence of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Whatever the case may be, there is no doubt that she is still the hypothetical "God" of this realm of existence.

In an entirely different state of mind, I failed to notice that the others had arrived, or that I was artfully passing the broadsword between hands without so much as a glance to ascertain their position relative to each other. However, as soon as I noticed this, I could not keep the motion going, and the sword impaled itself in the ground with a large thump.

Koizumi begin clapping while chuckling slowly, while Kyon and Miss Asahina sweatdropped, unsure how safe I was to be while holding an enormous sword that was in no way, shape, or form proportionate to myself.

I retrieved the sword before leaning against it, admiring Miss Asahina's outfit. It could only be described as gothic lolita mixed with Card Captor Sakura. She was holding a large scepter of sorts that was glowing a dim shade of magenta, while her dress was a striped gothic lolita outfit, with plenty of frills and lace. She had a thick brown sash around her middle, with multiple pockets sewn into the sash. The attire was very finely made, so it could not be called hodge-podge or even improper.

Loizumi stayed true to his word, seeming to be a teal and white clad Robin Hood, complete with the small shield he described earlier. The bow he wore across his back along with a quiver of steel-tipped arrows was composed of a thin yellowing wood, smoothed from apparent wear and constant use, with several pockmarks around the area one would hold while in a firing position.

Kyon, however, was the most out-of-place person among us all. I was at a loss for words at first, thinking a golem or some sort of large monster was entering my abode, before a large helmet that was akin to a screaming skull was removed, revealing Kyon's sweaty face. He sidled into my apartment, shutting the door behind him, before collapsing into a chair next to Koizumi, almost hitting him with his enormous sword.

I had almost forgot about Kyon while admiring Miss Asahina's uniform, but before I could ask why he had not entered the room with the others, he answered my unanswered question.

"I couldn't fit in the elevator, so I had to take the stairs. All 11 flights of them."

I had assumed that the description of his armor had been a hyperbole, but it was surprisingly accurate. The sword he carried was taller than he was, and had to be angled to fit through the doorway. It was almost a meter wide, the hilt being easily half a meter long. He set down the sword against the wall beside the chair. He removed several pieces of armor from his upper half, revealing it to be composed of 4 layers of a hardened alloy that, according to Kyon, was surprisingly light. I tested the large pauldron he was holding for comparison, and discovered that it weighed no more than half a pound. It was more than 2 inches thick and was almost a foot long, yet the metal was almost elastic in nature, feeling slightly malleable to the touch. I handed it back to Kyon, who reassembled his armor, and pulled a book from his pack on his back.

It was a similar book to what I had discovered in my bedroom, except for the small fact that my little pamphlet of disturbing information was not the size of a history textbook. He flipped to a page that he had folded over, and read a short passage aloud.

"The North High uniform is not standardized, to allow for a small show of creative expression among those attending. Students must cover themselves so nothing unwanted may be seen. The belly button may be exposed, but in the case of females, there must be a covering for the chest area. The use of any metals are allowed, and encouraged. Cloth is allowed, but will not be supplied by the school's workshop. Uniforms are suggested to be in Mercenary North High colors (Sky Blue and White), but is not required. Sheathes, quivers, and/or storage compartments for staffs and scrolls are recommended. Weaponry is allowed to be worn with the uniform, as an attack from an enemy may come at any time."

He cleared his throat once he finished, looked around at us, and offered his opinion.

"This is going to suck."

The others nodded in agreement, fearing for their own lives, but I remained thoughtful. I retrieved the small book from my bag and handed it around to the others, starting with Kyon.

After reading it, everyone seemed to be in slightly better spirits, if for the wrong reasons.

Koizumi eye-smiled again and said with a small laugh

"Well, looks like we're higher in the pecking order than we first suspected. I believe this is a direct change relating to Miss Suzumiya, yes?"

The question was met with the general consensus that "God" was indeed helping them along, if only to ensure they don't die. Well, not right away, anyways.

As we set out into the world, I walked with Kyon as he navigated himself down the narrow staircase that lacked handholds. I spoke to him quietly as we went.

"Asakura Ryoko is alive and well. She is still attending North High. She may or may not make an attempt on your life. Nevertheless, be careful when not around the other members of the SOS Brigade."

Kyon nodded and replied

"I think the whole sword-and-guns thing will work against her this time."

He patted the great sword hanging from his back, smirking all the while.

I could only hope he was right.

**A/N: This chapter is more than double the length of the first, weighing in at 3,090 words without this note! I've fleshed out the story and the characters a bit more, as planned. The timeline is getting really messy, but that's where the fun is. Weapons are there to be USED! :D And of course, when Haruhi wanted steampunk, she got a lot more than she wished for. I let the word slip once in the chapter itself: Mercenaries. Like, Xenoblade: Chronicles mercs.**

**Yup. I went there.**

**Reviews would be greatly appreciated!**


	3. Interpretation

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 3: Interpretation

The first observation we made in the lobby of the apartment complex, before even stepping foot into the city, was the grovelling nature of the landlord upon my appearance. He used to be a kindly old man, accepting my rent with a joke or a comment on how nice I looked. Though I'm not sure this was the same landlord as the previously described person.

"Oh! Miss Nagato! Do you wish for a valet for your excursion? Or perhaps you are on a 'contract'? In which case I'll leave the gates open until your eventual return."

The accented portion of his sentence belied that I had a contract, or frequently left the complex to perform such contract, which were also apparently time-consuming in nature. His beady eyes possessed an acute sense of fear within them, as though I would harm him if he didn't act on my every whim. He appeared to be dressed for a role in an opera, with a dress shirt and an ornate tie encrusted with silver patterns.

I politely declined and informed him that myself and the others would simply be taking a stroll through the city. At this point he nodded vigorously and stepped out of our way, allowing us to continue into the foyer and out the door.

Kyon looked back at the landlord as we left, commenting "That was odd. He gave us a dirty look when we were going up to your apartment. You must be important Yuki."

I nodded, but unable to determine in what fashion I was important enough to reduce the man I pay to allow me to live here into a grovelling exiting the complex and stepping into the streets, I inhaled entire city had changed greatly, as befitting a world-changing effect on technology and the nature of the universe.

The roads were no longer paved with asphalt, but with a form of cobblestone, that upon examination, was extremely fine and almost as smooth as asphalt. The roads themselves had one extra lane in the middle, wide enough to fit three people walking side-by-side, and the sidewalks were much thinner. The apparel most people were clothed in consisted of a multitude of straps, belts, leather, cloth, and in general was very baggy and would be able to conceal something very easily.

A young boy passed us as we began walking, riding on an analogue to a skateboard. The board itself consisted of a thin plate of metal, with the trucks mismatched T's of brass, the wheels apparently taken from a train, as they were almost dinner-plate sized. The wheels were wrapped in strips of cloth to, presumably, soften the ride. The boy had goggles that had multiple dials and switches covering them, multiple lenses on the back, and a constant whirring and the lenses were switched out constantly.

Street-lamps were a metal pole with two large pieces of flint attached to a form of wick, striking at set intervals to create a fire to illuminate the area. As we approached the end of the road, starting onto the hill that led to North High, we were halted by multiple armed guards.

The guards were dressed in plate mail akin to that worn by Kyon, though much lighter, and had helmets with a sharp point to them. A guard with a rose red helmet approached me and asked what business we had on the property outside of school hours.

I took a risk and answered back, without knowing anything about it "We were requested to come here by Miss Suzumiya for a special assignment."

The others nodded earnestly to keep up the lie, and surprisingly, the guard simply nodded and allowed us in, stating "The usual place is set up.", in a rather cryptic fashion.

The school itself had become a sprawling compound of dozens of smaller buildings in addition to the large main building and halls. The additional buildings had large doors that approached the height of the buildings themselves, but we headed for the building which held the SOS Brigade with due haste. The interior to the building was surprisingly similar, being almost identical, with a few changes. There was a small stove in each classroom we passed, connected to a team boiler, which piped into the ground, and apparently powered the clocks, somehow. It could be assumed that the clocks were wound through the steam engine, which was a phenomenal idea, all things considered.

We continued on up the stairs, noting the brass handrails, worn to a dull shine through use. The 3rd floor had a much higher ceiling, with skylights sending shafts of the mid-morning sun streaming down onto us. We stopped at the door to the club room. There was no window on the door, only a metal plate in its plate. We looked at each other. Only our breathing and the sound of armor plates could be heard.

Kyon moved over to the side and sat down.

"I'm not going to look inside until you guys do. I can only imagine what crazy shit awaits us."

Mikuru, who had kept quiet this entire time, cleared her throat. And unsheathed the long, thin sword which I had also forgotten she now possessed. Though she simply laid it on the wall next to Kyon, who looked at it oddly, before turning back to us.

"Um, I don't know if this is a good idea...you see, classified information told me that the classified information that Haruhi possessed, or still possesses, is of such a large magnitude that attempting to gain access to this room may cause classified information to occur, which would be disastrous due to the classified information it emits."

I shrugged and opened, the door, sensing no immediate danger in it. Mikuru squeaked in surprise, obviously not expecting me to open the door. Kyon was right on one account. There was indeed a large amount of "crazy shit" in the club room. Or, as befitting the changes that have occurred, the club armory. The room itself was much larger, almost 4 meters to the ceiling, perhaps more, and the room was rectangular, stretching what I assumed to be to both ends of the building.

There were a multitude of safes, shelves, tables, chairs, and workbenches within this space. Some of the benches had small tags on them, denoting its purpose. We filed into the room to examine things thoroughly, with Mikuru giving me a wary look before noting with a small chuckle that there was no costume rack. This fact was true, though it was replaced by a large closet that, upon opening it, was full of clothing, armor, and even more weapons.

A large tome that sat at the desk in the direct middle of the room caught my eye after I closed the closet. It had "SOS Manifesto Eternus" stamped onto it with bright blue ink. I brought the book to a smaller desk that Kyon was taking in the room from and opened it. The summary was written by Haruhi herself, which I promptly began to read. It read as follows.

"The SOS Brigade is an aspiring contractor operating out of the North High Mercenary Index. We specialize in high-risk, supernatural, paranormal, or otherwise assignments. Our members are able to take risks and ensure they complete the objective, no matter what. We also specialize in contracts that require an elite degree of stealth. Whether its be killing a corrupt politician, or exorcising a hostile spirit, or organizing taboo arcane volumes, or spying on a neighbor you fear is plotting to kill you, we WILL complete the job.

In our nearly 6 month career, we have not sustained even a single member fatality, and only one assignment has resulted in any severe injuries that could not be healed with the arcane arts. The total number of assignments completed as of this writing is over 170, and this number only rises. A copy of this book is made available to every participating member of the Japanese Independent Protection Program, or JIPP for short."

I was dumbfounded. This Haruhi, and by extension, this reality, had no qualms with employing teenagers as hired thugs. I slammed my open hand on the desk, startling the others. They came over to myself and I handed the book to Kyon, who, upon reading it, gave it to Mikuru, who passed it to Koizumi when she finished.

We all sat there looking at each other until Koizumi set the large book down and cleared his throat.

"Well, I think that solves the mystery of what the SOS Brigade does, and Haruhi's role in all of this. Unfortunately, we will have to act as Miss Suzumiya would expect us to."

Kyon rolled his eyes, picking up a claymore from the table he was leaning on.

"So what, do I get to put this in someone's gut? Sounds good to me."

He threw the two-handed sword across the room, lodging it in the wall firmly. Mikuru looked appropriately uncomfortable with the prospect of having to kill a fellow human. Koizumi was humming the Tetris song to himself. I sighed and took a walk around the perimeter of the room. There were such a large mass of swords and small arms that I was forced to wonder whether or not everything was used. There were odd weapons that were quite prominently creations exclusive to the universe we were currently in, and I took a good look at many of them. A naginata with a large gun barrel mounted to the handle was an interesting piece. A large revolver with what amounted to a machete mounted to a piston as a bayonet. A gunblade that held buckshot. Small canisters of a crude form of tear gas, made from elements I had never encountered before. Jars of green liquid that turned out to be acid that burned through metal.

After sitting in the SOS room for a few hours, soaking up information about this unfimiliar world we now live in, we slowly decided to return to our respective houses for the night. We went our separate ways in silence, each thinking about what we learned. I was not aware of what the others were doing while I was off examining everything, so we were unable to discuss the same topic. Kyon mentioned that "that Gatling Gun is awesome", after which I ignored him. I had not seen any Gatling Gun, nor did I particularly want to garner a description from him. I preferred to see things for myself.

Upon returning home, I removed the sheathe from my back, set it beside my British-style four poster bed, and changed from my outfit into something slightly more comfortable. I was beginning to feel the effects of human fatigue, which led me to an interesting conclusion: In this reality, I'm just a normal human. The DITE does not seem to exist, so I am limited to what is possible for a human to do. However, as evidenced by Kyon and his claymore-throwing antics, this is slightly more than in our own reality. I pondered this as sleep claimed me.

I heard someone else breathing just as I fell asleep.

**A/N: Yeah, terribad at updating on a schedule. xD I'm good now! xD Reviews would be wonderful, and yes, steampunk now equals magic, crazy, and murder. :D**


	4. Refraction

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 4: Refraction

**A/N: There's actually a method to my madness. I'm also going to respond to every review, to keep it classy. ^.^**

**Rinako: Thanks, it's appreciated!  
DemonRaily: That's explained in this chapter. And it's Tetris theme B that really sets off the psycho alarm. :D  
anon: Season 2 happened! Just...a couple years late...  
Anyways, on with the story!**

Monday morning: 24 hour time-skip

When I awoke on Monday morning, I was surprised to see Shamisen curled up next to my uniform. I woke him up with a scratch behind his ears. He jumped up in fright, but upon seeing me, he settled down, jumped to a nearby bookshelf, and resumed a perch on top.

Then he began to speak. In a heavy British accent no less.

"I say young fellow, my owner has become downright dastardly as of late! He kicked me whilst wearing a metal boot not a couple hours past!"

He turned to his side, showing a large bruise right below the black spot on his back. After proving his point, he curled up on the spot he stood in and resumed his sleep. I simply left him there, for I was not going to attempt to scale the high bookshelf to retrieve him, and there was no reason he couldn't stay here if Kyon was being abusive.

Speaking of which, Kyon has been moody the past two days. Yesterday, when I inquired if he would accompany myself and Koizumi to the local library to read modern history books, he rebuffed me with a nasty look and claimed he was going to go to the park. The other SOS members have noticed this as well, and he seems to only act in a malicious way, or otherwise out of the ordinary, when he is wearing his large suit of armor. We believe it is a sort of effect that is imbued into the armor.

Yesterday, we did not make plans, and therefore, as stated previously, Koizumi accompanied me in an excursion to the library closest to my abode, which had changed very little; it had been constructed in the late 19th century and only differed in furniture. We had collected a myriad of history titles from the shelves and skimmed them for important information. I wrote it down on a large scroll of parchment, which I will review before I turn in for the evening.

I changed out of my sleepwear and into my uniform, which I was now used to, and adjusted my pauldron so it would not appear off-kilter. I walked into the next room, retrieving a sword to place into my sheath. However, as I determined the day before that I rather disliked the grip on the sword I was using, I picked up two large, white chakram and placed them on my back. They were agile and through some enchantment applied to them, when thrown, they would always return to my hands. I hooked them onto a strap on my back after I removed the sheathe, grabbed my bag, and was about to go out the door to a relative unknown of school, when I stopped. It felt as though someone were watching me from within the room, but casting a glance around the room, I determined it was my imagination and set off to North High.

As I began walking to school, it became grossly apparent who was on their way to North High and who was not. It began was two people on the street ahead of me carrying broadswords and chatting about something or another, but before long, I was almost completely encased in enough heavily armed and armored people to lay siege to a city.

I saw people carrying staffs that glowed with fire and ice, armor suits that made Kyon look small, a girl dressed in the same North High uniform I was used to, but was carrying a massive crossbow on her back, and had boxes of bolts hung from a bandolier made out of what appeared to be green leather. Another girl who I ended up walking alongside was humming Beethoven's 5th while shouldering a hammer that must have weighed at least twice her weight and was almost 2 meters long. It also had a large spike on the very top, which was covered in stained blood. She saw me glancing at it, and just winked with a cheerful smile accompanying it. I looked rather normal compared to some of the students, but I was not going to judge.

After the short walk among the crowd, we arrived at the school, and I quickly headed for the SOS room, as we had agreed to meet up there. I was the first to enter, so I quickly removed the set of chakram from my back and laid them on the table in the middle of the room, before moving to the nearest chair and settling down to wait for the others.

I needn't wait long, for Miss Asahina arrived in a few minutes, sidling through the door and sighing in relief as she closed the door behind her, stifling the sounds of the hallway outside. She began busying herself with a stove in the corner, making several cups of tea. Old habits die hard I suppose. I noted that she did not have the longsword nor sheathe on her person. It appeared I wasn't the only person who disliked the excessive weight of the weaponry on us.

Next to come through the door was Koizumi. He looked identical to his appearance on Saturday, except for a helmet that appeared to have a telescope mounted to it, on an arm that was attached via several small springs. He took off said helmet when he entered the room, nodding at both of us and flashing a smile as Mikuru sat down to my left with a tray of tea.

"I can see you're staring at my new toy. It has multiple levels of magnification in the magnifier, allowing for a sort of binoculars effect. I think this will be useful with my presumed role as an archer."

He sat down on the right of me and helped himself to her tea, thanking her as he took a small sip. We sat in an awkward silence until Haruhi arrived, almost 10 minutes later, after the first bell had rang. Or rather, the miniature fog horn that echoed through the halls, causing us to all cringe.

Miss Suzumiya surprised all of us with her entrance. We were all focused on the door that we failed to look anywhere else. Without warning, we heard a window slide open behind us, and a crackling sound get louder. Without warning I was flung out of my chair and into a headlock by none other than Haruhi Suzumiya. Her hands were covered in what looked like dark spider webs, continuously coiling around themselves. The window was open all the way, and a dirty footprint graced the windowsill.

"Yuki-chan! I caught you off guard! You need to improve on that okay?"

She sounded incredulous that I had been "off guard", and released me from my choke hold on the floor. She had thoroughly startled Mikuru and Koizumi as well, but the tea was not spilled. I reclaimed my seat so as to get a better look at Miss Suzumiya, in the flesh, sitting on the table in front of us.

She could be best described as a mage who liked battle armor instead of purses.

She wore a red trench-coat that was cut off at the knees. It was adorned with black buttons that glittered in the sunlight streaming through the open window. Her hair was held up iin the usual fashion, but was kept in place not by ribbons, but by thin brass pipes that looked vaguely like the shells of scarab beetles. Her skirt was a myriad of colors, mostly browns and maroons and blacks, as though it was meshed together from a myriad of various pieces of various materials. She wore black leggings, coupled with matte black greaves that were jagged and somehow giving off an aura of malice. She wore a set of blood-red pauldrons on her shoulders, each topped with a large spike that pointed in opposite directions. On her arms were a mismatched set of bracers, one being black with a hand-guard, the other a gunmetal gray and covered in small holes. She had a small book in her hands that looked to be covered in a fine green mist.

She smirked when no one said anything for several seconds, before pushing herself off the table and performing a small pirouette.

"No need to be so loud you guys. I'm going to have to give Kyon the death penalty for being late again however."

Haruhi leaned over the table backwards, looking at myself while her head was upside down, before dropping the book she was holding onto the table. She walked over to her desk in the back and looked over its contents. She looked at me sharply.

"Yuki, why have you been looking at the Manifesto? I thought you would've memorized the whole book by now."

I shrugged, and she took it at face value. The conversation would no doubt have continued, if not for the violent interruption of Kyon, who slammed the metal door off its hinges and sent it flying across the room, or more accurately directly at my face. I dropped to the floor and missed taking a door to the face by less than an inch, due to it flipping haphazardly over the desk, coming to rest wedged partially inside the bookshelf behind me.

Kyon looked especially pissed off, holding his sword in one hand and squeezing the door-frame for all it was worth, before breaking off the chunk he was holding from the rest of if and whipping it at Haruhi. Haruhi parried it away with the bracers she wore, now getting mildly irritated herself.

Kyon charged at Haruhi, who sidestepped his lumbering form and slapped his back with her hand, which was covered in a fine mist of white. His back became encased in ice, limiting his movement, but he simply shattered it against the wall before going after Haruhi again. I jumped up at this point, grabbing my set of chakram and standing to the side of Kyon. Haruhi looked thoughtful.

"So Kyon, looks like a ward cursed your armor again, eh? Such a naughty boy." She said this in a condescending tone, enraging Kyon, who charged at her.

I felt myself spurred to action, and I took out his leg as he went, before sliding underneath him and grabbing his neck as I popped back up, bringing him with me. In less than a second, I had my chakram resting against his jugular, and Haruhi pinned his arms with more ice magic.

Haruhi stood in front of him while staring at him, hands cupping his cheeks. He attempted to spit on her, but she avoided it, or rather, the saliva stopped in mid-air, before dropping to the floor. A luminous mist began to form in Haruhi's eyes, while Kyon began to quiet down.

In an instant, it sounded like glass was beginning to shatter, before being blown away entirely. Haruhi let go of Kyon, who remained in the same position . I took away my chakram, feeling safe to do so, when the unexpected occurred.

His armor disappeared. It was slow at first, black particle rising up into nothing, but began to quicken at a constant rate, and before long, was left standing in...a smaller suit of armor. One that fit him much better. Kyon's dazed look began to recede, and he began to shake his head vigorously.

He looked around, and cursed. "Damnit, what the hell happened?" He looked to Haruhi for an explanation, who had taken a seat at her desk and had her feet up on it. She shrugged. "You got cursed by a ward again, apparently. This time it made you a raging asshole, but at least that's better than a suicidal, raging asshole, right?"

Kyon's sweat-drop was so large I could feel it through the Force. He blanched, before looking at his armor. "This is NOT what I remember wearing...but I like it."

Haruhi simply sighed.

"Of course Kyon, you're training to be a Paladin, not a Beserker. The ward had corrupted it, but it should be fine now. And Yuki-chan, why is a Rogue like yourself carrying chakram?"

I looked over the chakram in question in response, noting all of the unique angles of them, before turning to her and shrugging.

"I guess I just wanted a change. I'm comfortable with them, anyways."

Haruhi just looked at them for a while longer, before turning to Mikuru, who had sat there, silent, for the entire confrontation.

"Mikuru, I got this absolutely adorable outfit for you to wear! The pauldrons are made out of kitten fur!" She smiled happily, but Mikuru's face was one of absolute shock.

Haruhi pulled the clothing piece in question out of...I'm not sure, actually, but it didn't matter, as Miss Asahina made a quick exit, with Haruhi going after her.

We all gave a heavy sigh of relief.

"Okay, that was quite interesting, I must admit."

Koizumi smirked as he said this, having watched the entire course of events unfold without moving a muscle. Kyon gave him a dirty look, which Koizumi did not see. I looked between them, before settling on speaking to Kyon first.

"Why were you so violent these past few days?"

My question was simply, but we were all wondering it.

Kyon sat on the desk with his foot resting on a chair, sword facing down, his hands leaning on it.

"Well, after we met up on Saturday, I went back home. I was looking through the stuff in my room when I found a chest that was marked "Exp. Brown". I was curious in the nature of its contents, so I attempted to open I mention it had runes all over it? Yeah, they started to glow, and after that I felt like I hated everybody, especially Haruhi. And I've been messed up until she did whatever that thing was to me just now. The chest wouldn't open, by the way."

We both just nodded, as it sounded plausible, and no one really knew what would happen in this alternate world, so there wasn't anything to say.

Haruhi walked in through the empty doorway, as the door was still in the bookcase, dragging Mikuru behind her. She was in a suit of pink armor with furry pauldrons and a hat with bells attached to it. She was obviously embarrassed beyond all recognition, but wolf whistles and jeering calls could be heard from outside the room as people walked by.

Haruhi stood with her hands in a V shape.

"Victory is mine!" She looked at Mikuru before grinning crazily.

"Isn't she adorable?" She asked us,.

I said nothing, Kyon protested and blushed, and Koizumi agreed. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

We ended up spending the rest of the school day in the club room,. Not once did a teacher come looking for us. We were forging new weapons on the club room's anvil and crafting tables. Haruhi blamed our apparent inability to do so as nicely as she could on the time we spent off before the beginning of the term (which had started on this day). I managed to craft a finely shaped rapier, which now hung proudly from my hip. It was short for a rapier, more of a curved dagger, and Haruhi enchanted it so that it would cloud the perceptions of all who were pierced by it.

Kyon made a pair scythes that could attach end to end to become a hybrid scythe-quarterstaff. Haruhi was impressed with the concept, marking it in a notebook as a prospective design.

Koizumi made a single oversized tonfa, which appeared to be modeled after a large tooth. The side that faces outward and was usually blunt was razor sharp, serrated, and covered in a white enamel-like substance to enhance rigidity.

Mikuru surprised everyone, including herself, in what she created in 7 short hours. It was an oversized war-ax. She had initially decided to make a naginata, but malformed the blade, resulting in an oversized ax head. Instead of starting over, she created another one to result in a double-sided ax. It was much too large for her to wield, but Kyon tested out on some training dummies Haruhi summoned using her magic, and claimed it was impeccably balanced.

Haruhi allowed us to leave at 3 o'clock, as everyone was exhausted and sweaty after standing in the crafting section of the clubroom all day. Haruhi refereed to it as "the head room" however, and she seemed suspicious when we called it "the clubroom", so I will begin calling it the head room in my own personal telling, to reduce confusion.

After I arrived home, I was greeted by Shamisen, who seemed a little displeased when I told him it would be quite alright for him to return to Kyon's place of living, and that his bad mood had been resolved. After Shamisen departed, I couldn't help but get the impression that he does not like Kyon particularly much.

Casting the thought aside, I made myself some rice and ate dinner. I saw that some rice had been spilled on the floor, but assumed I myself had done it and thought nothing of it. I bathed once I was finished, noticing that the bathroom was identical to what it used to be, complete with lights that seemed to run off of magic of some type, which I do not even begin to understand yet.

Getting ready for bed, I saw the parchment which contained my notes. I was much to tired to review them however, deciding to wait until the next day to do so.

After I climbed into bed in my pajamas, I felt the presence of another person. This time, I was still conscious enough to tilted my head up to see the end of the room.

There was a shadow in the doorway, a female silhouette with long hair. It stood there for a second, before taking a cautious step into the room. The moonlight peeking through the blinds revealed the lower body, clad in the summer uniform of North High. As the figure approached, their head came into the moonlight.

It was Emiri Kimidori.

**A/N: I just went there. Who else would it have been? What's that? Thought it would be Ryoko for sure? NEIN.**

**A review would be awesome, it's like the crack for crack-addicts...you know you want to sponsor my addiction! :D  
Until next time, keep it gritty enough to grind pumice smooth on.**


	5. Consultation

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 5: Consultation

**A/N: Ack, this is late for me, but it's worth it! :3 Actually, who am I kidding, I write this author's notes before I write the chapter. So I actually have no idea what you're about to experience, but seeing as I actually did pretty okay on this one, I expect it shall be excellent. Cheers! Oh, and a review wouldn't hurt either. ;)**

The longer I waited for her to move, the more I questioned my situation. I was lying in my bed, in the dead of night, staring at a fellow interface, who was standing in the threshold of my personal quarters. She made no move to enter, and did not appear to know I was conscious. The seconds stretched into minutes, and then into hours, as the passing of the moon lit her face in different fashions, never touching her eyes. Not a single sound was made, nor movement from both sides.

This stalemate was shattered by the grating sound of claws on the window. Taking my eyes off Emiri for just a second, I saw Shamisen looking in at our battle of attrition, mewling unhappily. After a moment, he swished his tail and left the ledge. I looked back to Emiri, only to discover she was no longer in her place. She now stood at the foot of my bed, looking directly at me.

"Hello Ms. Nagato, did I displease you with my appearance?" She cocked her said to the side as she said quietly, as she played with a bracelet the same turquoise color as her hair. She made no attempt to attack me, and indeed seemed concerned for my well-being. I chose my words carefully, possibly having taken several seconds too long, before answering.

"...No, I am not displeased, only...surprised."

She nodded in understanding, hopefully, before beginning to speak again.

"I'm sure you are aware that we no longer have contact with the Thought Entity. In fact, we are not even interfaces by the standard definition any more. Our bodies are no longer imitation shells for us to inhabit, but actual containers for our very beings. This has brought about the change of the development of genuine emotions, as I'm sure you have observed and experienced for yourself."

Stretching out her hand, she pulled me out of the bed and bent over to look at me closely. Standing up, she gave a small smile, apparently satisfied with whatever it was she was looking for.

"So, would it be okay if I stayed here? My boyfriend's parents are coming home from a trip to Austria-Hungary, so I won't have a place to sleep."

And out comes the real reason she was here. Even when we were but simple human data interfaces, Emiri Kimidori would always be a sly type, living off of the land...and by that I mean off of others. However, she would carry her weight, as humans would say, so I shrugged and nodded.

She giggled and clapped her hands.

"Great! I've actually been hanging around here for food for a few days now, I managed to stay out of your way and you never even noticed me!" She adopted a frown and put her index finger to her mouth.

"Well, I did spill rice last night, but I had to run and hide because you were coming back into the room."

I sweatdropped. Now that I thought about it, I had been correct in the rice on the floor and the feelings that someone had been watching me! Except it was just this girl who couldn't decide whether she was bubbly or stoic like yours truly. She seems to be leaning towards bubbly now. Not that that's a bad thing.

Emiri made her way out of the room, while I could only sigh and shake my head. I stretched contentedly after fixing the bedsheets, walking over to the window. No scratch marks were discernible, so it could be assumed that either Shamisen had scratched on the wall outside, or was capable of using restorative magic to generate a new stretch of glass. Seeing as Miss Suzumiya has turned into a Batllemage Ninja, it would actually be safe to assume the second option. Which appealed in several ways, if Haruhi were truly getting us involved with what she claimed to be...which would, looking back on our previous misadventures, actually be LESS dangerous than the former SOS Brigade. Though our old routines resulted in the deaths of less people...or any, really. Unfortunately, I cannot relate to how these people will feel, for dead organics are incapable of feeling anything, if only for the simple fact that they are dead.

Pulling myself from my daydreams and ponderings on the windowsill, I freshened up at my dresser and changed into a similar outfit as the day before, albeit the colors being inverted. Even after having our creepy standoff that should not have been a standoff at all, and was more of myself being paranoid, it was only 06:00 hours, while it had been almost 23:50 hours when Emiri had made her presence known. I was mildly surprised to discover that I was not distraught and morbidly tired, as my body still retained some traits from its time as an interface. However, I did feel pangs of hunger, and satiated these feelings with a large heaping bowl of ramen, though I made an additional bowl for Emiri to consume as well.

She came in to eat after I began washing my now-empty bowl. I noted that she was now wearing a pair of heavy pants, similar in fashion to those worn by Arctic explorers. It had a belt with consisted of multiple large cloth loops that were rimmed with a dull green metallic material. She bounded over to me in an uncharacteristically happy manner, took her bowl with a word of thanks, and proceeded to inhale it in a fashion I had only seen Miss Suzumiya accomplish.

Though none of the other members of the SOS Brigade know/knew (?) this, Emiri was actually a very outgoing person, and simply maintained a stoic persona when dealing with humans of North High, so as to not look out of place while observing Miss Suzumiya.

Emiri handed me the bowl to wash, but remained on hand and dried the bowls once I finished washing and rinsing them.

We simply stood there for a quiet minute before Emiri commented that we still had a couple hours before we had to leave for school. I stood there trying and failing to ascertain what we could do to occupy ourselves, when it came to me. I turned to Emiri in Phoenix Wright style. Arm and everything.

"What do you know about the timeline we are in?" My words came out jumbled, but I think she got the point.

Emiri led me to the room with all of the assorted weaponry, before pointing me to a leather chair in the corner, sitting down in a congruent chair herself. Crossing her legs, she began to gain a small smirk.

"So, what did you want to ask your sempai?"

I felt my eyebrow twitch. Despite the fact that we were created at the same time, Emiri was enrolled a year ahead of myself, to prevent a grouping of interfaces and potentially arousing suspicion from Miss Suzumiya. I sighed, before phrasing my question as eloquently as possible.

"You know what I want to ask. What do you know about this...environment? Or more specifically, how it works and why things have happened the way they have. A brief history, if you will."

Emiri wiggled her eyebrows like she was enjoying toying with me (she was), but nevertheless began to talk.

"Well, the whole lack of adoption of DC current caused a whole slew of unrealized changes in the way everything happened. In 1892 the existence of cosmic energy was discovered and documented extensively. This can be known as 'magic' for common use. Magic can be used for almost any purpose, and allows the very properties of existence to be changed and melded to a users' will. People who mastered the usage of magic in various fields became known as sages of their patron art, like a blacksmithing sage, or an engineering sage. Advances such as magical lights and magic engines occurred, while weaponry stayed mostly the same as it had been at 1890, but with a lot more emphasis placed on individual skill.

Magic caused World War I in an entirely different fashion, making mustard gas obsolete, yet still facilitating large scale trench warfare and massive loss of life for both sides. Actually, the sides were different in this world as well. Instead of being the Central Powers and Allied Powers, it was the Coalition of Free Mages and the Empire of Magic. Germany and Austria-Hungary, along with Poland, Austria, Japan, and China formed the Empire, while the rest of Europe and North America formed the Coalition.

The Coalition used despicable methods of fighting, such as necromancy to turn dead enemy soldiers into unwilling allies, and would poison the land if they expected to lose it. An aspiring Imperial battlemage turned the tide of the war in 1919 when he discovered that he was able to force the undead to shirk their captor's will and fight for what they had believed in. By this time, the Coalition had turned millions of corpses to their cause, unknowingly signing their own execution order.

This young mage was known as Adolf Hitler, who had joined the Imperial Army after completing his Magical arts degree at a state school in Vienna, Austria. He was first made aware of such an ability when a transfer student, a priest from Japan, showed him how to dispel the impure magic from an undead. ...am I boring you?"

She looked at me, as I had been sitting back with an odd expression. I didn't want to say how ridiculous it sounded to me, so I nodded and asked her to continue.

"Alrighty then...as I was saying, he learned the skill from a priest, and quickly taught it to the other men in his unit, who were known as the Blitzkreigers, for they would utilize shielding magic to infiltrate an enemy area, then strike out with large amounts of physically damaging arts. When the war finally ended in 1922, the majority of Western Europe was a tattered mess. The Coalition was reduced to consisting solely of France and Spain, as the other member countries had refused to surrender to the "Imperial do-gooders", and had thusly been wiped out of existence and re-formed as Imperial colonies. The United States fared the worst, with the majority of population centers having been sacked by Imperial forces. Only Boston was left intact among major cities, as it served as the new capital of the Imperial States of the West, as the now-colony was christened. The Empire consisted of almost every country on the planet by this point, as they were offered protection and economic prosperity under the Imperial Charter.

Things went smoothly for almost 30 years before cracks began to form in the Imperial system."

Emiri looked to the clock beside an unfamiliar cannon I hadn't noticed, tucked behind a door. It was almost 7:30 A.M.

"Alright, I have enough time to tell you the second part as well.

In 1951, the first conflict between Imperial nations occurred. At first it was nothing but a trade dispute between Canada and the Imperial States. Canada wanted the States to assist in enforcing their law of no enchanted weaponry being allowed across borders, as a safety issue. This was insanely difficult to enforce, because any decent mage would be able to teleport themselves over the geographical border with ease. Canada created a picket line on the border to enforce their views, while the States did the same.

A cannon misfired on one side, no one knows which, and within seconds the entire 3-mile stretch of border they were standing on had devolved into a battle. Imperial battlemages quickly dispatched the Canadians with a powerful Holy spell, but the backlash from the incident led the Canadians to secede and declare war on the Empire and all of Her member states.

Before the Empire could even unite a force to take on the Canadians, the Coalition, having been left alone for years, declared allegiance with Canada and revealed its revamped and imposing army, at the ready to march into Germany. This caused several Imperial nations to take the chance to settle old grudges, and before long, only Japan, Korea, China, and Scandinavia were the whole of the Empire. No less than 8 different alliances had formed between two or three or four countries, and Europe, North America, and Western Asia simultaneously dissolved into a massive battle Royal. The Empire was now relatively defenseless, and was all but wiped from the face of Terra by a surprise Italian attack on Sweden. A coordinated attack from over 400 Italian commandos resulted in the utter annihilation of the power structure, and Sweden was quickly absorbed by Norway, who wisely chose to remain neutral in this conflict.

To keep it simple, and for lack of time, by the end of the conflict, almost a decade later, over half of Europe was reduced to nothing more than an inhospitable mess, of which parts of it still are, and there are only 7 countries which have not wiped each other out. Those being Spain, Germany, Poland, Croatia, Greece, and Switzerland. The United Kingdom had remained as well, but not wanting to be in such a hostile area any longer, used teleportation magic and relocated the whole island to a location slightly east of Japan. Ireland was poisoned to the point of no return, and to this day, corpses still roam the dusty remains of fields. Both Canada and the States wiped each other out through biological destruction magic, leaving the whole American continent devoid of human life, a reminder of the spitefulness of man.

After all of this happened, the World Self-governing Treaty of 1968 was signed in...well...1968. It stated that no country may have its own military force, or any armed force outside of city and town militias. IT also placed a huge, huge, huge level of importance on the individual being able to defend themselves, therefore not needing to invest in a military. This also legalized bounty-hunting and paid assassinations, as the weak and cowardly individuals should not be able to hold onto their positions through nothing other than merit alone. Every single country signed the document, and no one has broken it since. The whole world lives in peace, and the people are the only defense force anyone ever needs.

Any questions?"

By this time my head was close to bursting from all of this information, but I only had one question.

"How do you know all of this?"

Emiri grinned and pointed to the corner.

"I read all of those history texts you brought home a couple days ago. I had nothing better to do, and they were quite informative."

I looked around to the place in the corner she was pointing to, and sure enough, the books I had skimmed through were stacked neatly next to the odd cannon I had seen before. Which must mean...

"Emiri, is that cannon type thing sitting next to the books yours?"

Emiri giggled before standing up, walking over to said cannon, and lifting it up by the barrel. It had a short barrel, possibly only 18 inches long, but the width of it indicated a very large round. The part that puzzled me was the revolver-type magazine at the end. It appeared to be from a revolver, if a revolver used anti-tank round. The weapon used a pistol grip, while apparently using a lever-action that was to the rear of the weapon.

"Yes it is. It's a revolver cannon that I found in my boyfriend's closet; he let me have it."

A revolver cannon. Interesting. Although I must note that she says boyfriend in a condescending fashion; she isn't actually in any form of relationship with him, other than being friends.

I peered at the time, seeing it to be 08:55 A.M., telling Emiri that it was time for us to leave. She agreed, hoisting the cannon into her arms, and putting a large round retrieved from her pants into the chamber before snapping it shut. We walked out into the main room, where I quickly retrieved the chakram from my room, when she shook her head.

"Yuki-chan, you shouldn't use something that light." She snatched the chakram faster than I could blink, before dashing into the room of weaponry, but before I could make a move after her, she returned with a large and rather menacing looking double-ended dagger, but still carrying the chakram. It was serrated on both ends and seemed to crackle with a blue light, as it made my hair stand on edge. She handed me the electrically charged dagger, but also returned the chakram to my back.

"You'll need them at some point though." Emiri giggled, as though taking pleasure at the thought of myself, or her, needing to use a weapon against another living creature at some point. Though, she always was a weird one. I have no qualms about it, but I would not try to force it to happen unless it was absolutely necessary.

Then again, this could be an excellent opportunity to deal with Koizumi...joking! I was joking. Yeah, bad taste on my part. Koizumi can be annoying sometimes, but now that I l no longer have an agenda, he's just a friend. Though he can be extremely annoying at times. Actually, make that overpoweringly so.

I then began to ponder my own weapons compared to hers. I had one ranged and one close quarter s weapon, whilst Emiri only had the absurdly powerful ranged weapon. I voiced my concerns in the form of a question.

"What are you using if an enemy defeats your advantage of range? That cannon is useless close up."

Her form of replying was surprising. In a flash she had pulled a pair of crescent-shaped tonfa from underneath her uniform, showing off their elegant curves. She smiled at me, winked, then put them away under her shirt.

We made our way out of the apartment, and I locked the door, and we headed off for the insanity-filled high-school of North High.

It's going to be a fun day.

**A/N: And there you have it! Absolutely on the spot thinking with the World Wars and...well...everything, actually. Emiri is never highlighted upon, so I decided to take some creative merit and not make her stoic as all balls like lovely Yuki is.**

**Reviews would be greatly appreciated, and help my insane thought process greatly!**

**Until next time, keep it classy, like a duck with a french fry. :3**


	6. Blind Eye

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 6: Blind Eye

**A/N: Well, since Vapor got removed due to the word "hell" being in the summary (curse you Guidelines I vaguely skimmed!) I noticed people actually care about this story. Odd. Anyways, I thank The Layman and tats magicalmcguffins for actually PM'ing me and asking where the story went! I thank them, and have an increased desire to continue this story!**

Another thing, I kind of ran out of things that ended in –tion and sounded good, so the naming convention is changing. xD

**Last thing, I promise: This is where it gets absolutely ridiculous. Like, worse than if they enabled Team Killing in very COD public match.**

**Yeah, that bad.**

I bid Emiri goodbye as we went off in separate directions once we made it into the school, after proceeding past numerous security checkpoints that had not been there the day before. When questioned about the checkpoints, a guard gave the stiff reply of "Just a precaution, please move along.", before shooing us past and looking to the next entrants. We exchanged glances, but simply shrugged and continued on.

When Emiri left for places unknown, I began to make my way towards the club building. I passed numerous people along the way, all of whom nodded to me, and I to them. A girl with curly blue hair flashed me a smile and a peace sign, before resuming a conversation with a girl next to her. I thought nothing of it as I entered the building and proceeded to the club room, not seeing a soul in the halls.

Upon entering the club room, I was surprised to see none other than Miss Asahina pinning Emiri to the wall, with a small knife inches from Emiri's neck, glittering with a strange green light. Upon my entrance Mikuru dropped the knife and backed away from Emiri, who simply stood up and retrieved the knife. Walking over to the nearest furnace, she promptly threw it into the flames, before shutting the door. Turning around, she smiled sweetly at Miss Asahina, who was more scared of that than she had any right to be. I mean, Emiri wouldn't kill anybody...I think. Actually, I should rethink that one.

"I doubt it will melt in there, but I doubt you'll try to get that shard of wasted mineral wealth out of there now, hm?"

Emiri stepped around to the door, picked up her discarded weapon from its place on the floor, and leaned against the wall, looking at both of us.

"You know Mikuru, here, I'm part of the SOS. Bet you didn't know that, or the fact that those security checkpoints on the way to school today were put in place because a school-wide bounty was put out on a teacher. Anyone who tries to go after that teacher isn't going to leave the grounds alive...unless they're smart."

With a flourish, Emiri dictated the 'smashing arrival' of Haruhi herself, who threw the door open and ran in with a look of sadistic glee on her face, dragging the collars of both Koizumi and Kyon behind her. Which was rather impressive, considering that Kyon was wearing chain-mail armor and Koizumi still had a large wooden bow affixed to his back.

After being dumped rather unceremoniously at our feet, they picked themselves up with whatever dignity they had (which wasn't much), before going to rest on the wall on opposite sides of Emiri.

Haruhi ran up to a desk and jumped atop it, turning around and dictating to us like so much as a charismatic leader to his people.

"There is a bounty out today, issued by a third party! And we are going to be the ones to claim it! This is going to be tough, as the school itself is attempting to dissuade students from taking this task on, threatening suspension and expulsion. That is due to the fact that the teacher was caught commiting a hate crime, but the school wishes to smooth the event over, as that teacher has tenure!

What did he do, you ask? Well, an elderly British man beat up a boy of Canadian descent, while screaming obscenities to him about him being a worthless colonist who didn't deserve to live, and that the Motherland would never accept a cultural failure like himself in proper society. The British man did this during an after school help session, and several other students witnessed its occurrence." By this point Haruhi was livid, and I could see why.

"That is WRONG, Brigade members! We will NOT stand for this! The target is Mr. Reginald Foster, the old gentleman who teaches the upperclassman's criminal justice classes. The student he brutalized on grounds of race and position is still in the med wing being given a large dose of restorative magic. This was brought to the attention of the school by one of Mikuru's friends, that girl Tsuruya who pranks people with syringes filled with sedatives.

Anyways, this is a high-stakes contract, and failure is not an option. The employers are the boy's parents, willing to pay to any who gives them the proof that they killed the teacher in question. Heads are in this season, so we'll be delivering the fine severed head of this corrupt, uncouth man to these deliciously cultured people. For this purpose, we will be splitting up to ambush him after school ends for the day. He will be surrounded by a security detail when he leaves his classroom at 4 o'clock this evening."

Haruhi pointed to myself and Emiri.

"You two will be positioned on the roof of the adjacent building. When I give the signal, Emiri, you are going to shoot him in the chest with an armor piercing round, which will surely eliminate him in one hit. Yuki will be on hand to protect you afterward."

She then points to Koizumi and Kyon.

"You will be stationed just around the corner from where Mr. Foster's room is. Once he goes down, you will dispatch the members of his security detail. They are mercenaries, so there is no one who needs to be left breathing, if you so choose."

She finally pointed at Miss Asahina and herself.

"After they have been 'forcibly removed' from the area, myself and Mikuru will swing in, take our prize with utmost precision, then use a structural restorative magic to repair any damage that will inevitably occur, as well as clean up any blood. We'll also dispose of all the bodies, then walk out as though nothing happened."

Haruhi nodded to a burlap bag sitting next to the door, her eyes glistening with anticipation.

"We will take the head in that bag to the parents of the boy, who are staying with him in the med wing until he recovers."

She nods her head once and jumps down from the table, looking at each of us in turn.

"This is the biggest job we've had yet. The payout will be almost one MILLION yen. Let's not mess this up, alright?"

Walking over to the burlap sack, she walked out, before stopping and looking back.

"Don't you remember guys? Tuesday is academic day. We've got to get to class!"

With a start, we all looked at each other, shrugged, and then followed Haruhi to the classroom which, up until this entire scenario, had been her homeroom. I never bothered to go to class, but if I had, then I would have been in this room as well, I guess.

We walked into the room in the middle of a lecture, but the teacher simply continued plowing on about the mechanics of a double-action revolver, and how it was one of the most stable and reliable actions for a gunpowder weapon. The students in the seats took notice however of our entrance, and some students moved out of seats in the back and rushed to seats farther in the front.

All of the students had some form of weapon on them, ranging from a pistol or knife hanging from a belt, to one girl in the very back who had a hulking mechanical android sitting on her desk, making clicking sounds as the gears on its shoulders turned a large turret mounted to its shoulder continuously. She gave me a small wave as I walked past her, only to sit down in the seat next to her, watching as Koizumi sat in front of me, Kyon sat to his left, Haruhi in front of her, Emiri in front of her, and Miss Asahina sat behind Kyon, next to me.

As soon as we had settled in, a low murmur began to arise in the room. Discussions on all manner of topics began, and it was soon obvious that almost no one was paying any smidgen of attention to the teacher. One student in the front pulled out several thick books and began to inscribe spell circles on the desk, slowly turning the surface into a bubbling cesspool of acid that began to drip off the sides. Some watched him in interest, but most went about with whatever they were doing before. Haruhi and Kyon began to have a conversation about Haruhi's hair or some matter, and my mind began to wander, as there were no books in front of me to read, and no one around wanted to talk.

I looked over to the girl to the right of me, who had pulled a rather extensive set of tools from somewhere and had an arm of her mechanical construct disassembled on the desk, prying at the inner workings of its finger with a pair of tweezers. I began to watch with great attentiveness, marveling at the sheer complexity of something so small. It was similar to my own interests in computers before. I could easily see myself becoming entwined in the inner workings of a mechanical automaton that was created out of the ingenuity of the human brain. Despite lacking a visible source of electrical power, it still moved constantly and even made moves to swat at a fly that was buzzing around its head, almost as if to suggest that the creation could sense a feeling of touch as well. I was truly amazed by this, and spoke up to the girl to voice my entrapment in her mystical art that, to me, went far beyond any magic that I'd learned in my short time studying it.

"Excuse me...what is that?" I pointed to the entire thing, unsure how I would describe it.

Stopping her work on the arm, she set her tools down and looked up at me. Her dark green hair fell in her face as she reached up to push it behind her ear. She grinned at me, exposing the corner of a tooth on the left side of her face, obviously proud of her work. She waved her hand at the automaton, acting like it was nothing but a thing.

"This? This is my friend TOM-nyoron~. He's a Self Powered Automaton Magicka Mechanicale, or SPAMMY for short. He's a mechanical presence engineered by an Omni mage in Vienna for my birthday when I was just 5 years old. I've built him up from his simple beginnings. When I first got him, he was barely up to my waist, and couldn't speak even 10 words!"

She flipped a switch in the back of his head, which caused his eye sockets to come alight with a shining light. He jerked around, reaching out with one hand to feel for his other hand, which, in a move that surprised me on so many levels, reached up to tap on its still-connected counterpart, which swooped down and pick it up, re affixing itself to the main torso, which secured it with a series of clinking and whirring noises. It patted the girl on the head, who giggled, before standing up off the desk and looking at me.

"Oh I say my young miss, how am I to make your acquaintance? I am TOM Nyoro, an Omni product in possession of Miss Nyoro. I am a general assistant, with combat initiatives when under excess pressure."

TOM flipped his hand over to reveal small blades that were partially exposed on his large metal hands, which sunk back into the metal to be covered by liquid metal, solidifying and appearing as though they were never there at all. He bowed to me, before turning back to his owned, who turned him off, as people were starting to look at us, as it was apparent that large robots weren't common, even now. He curled into the fetal position as the light in his eyes died out slowly, as the girl, now partially identified as Miss Nyoro, sat back down and held a hand out for me to shake.

I did so, and she shook very firmly, almost to the point of breaking some in my arm. She let go and proceeded to properly introduce herself.

"Well, you've met my friend, but you sure don't know me! I'm Tsuruya Nyoro, engineer and medic extraordinaire! I moved up to this level at the beginning of the semester, and I'm a member of the largest mercenary group in the underclassmen group, the Iron Valkyries!" Tsuruya pulled a large metallic cross from underneath her robes, setting it on the desk. It glowed a dim red color before returning to a dull gunmetal gray. Returning it to the folds of her robes, it left a burn mark that was uniform except for the letters IV, marked neatly in the center of the burn.

Her introduction was quite rushed, but I sensed no animosity; it was plainly obvious she was just interested in having fun, judging from how she carried herself. She looked at me with an expectant look, until I sighed, and introduced myself in kind, despite my lack of people skills, and, in truth, my lack of wanting to talk. An interim effect from being an interface, I assumed. She began to speak again while I was sifting through my thoughts.

"And you're Nagato-chan, the Blade of the SOS Brigade, right? You don't seem to be the stoic bad-ass everyone else makes you out to be. You don't have as many animal skulls hanging from your clothes as I expected either, nyoron."

This surprised me, and I quickly whipped my hands out in alarm.

"No, who told you that, I'm not anything like that."

"Well, a bunch of seniors were talking about how you severed this guys arm for tripping you on the stairs."

"I would never-!"

"I found traces of the metal you use in your daggers in the wound when I was cleaning it. I'm a medic, remember?"

Tsuruya adopted a cat face, but simply said "Don't worry, you can't get int trouble for that, he had it coming to him. It's not nice to trip a lady!".

I just kind of shook my head and gave up, and we moved away from the topic to more general things, like how the boy sitting in front of her had one leather boot and one metal boot.

The next several hours passed in a similar fashion, with a myriad of topics coming up, and Miss Asahina joining the conversation after lunch, at which point the connection was made that Mikuru and Tsuruya knew each other very well, as Mikuru giggled when Tsuruya called Mikuru "Hina-sensei-nyan", much to her chagrin.

We all ate lunch together, as Tsuruya summoned a bento for each of us, including Kyon, Haruhi, and Koizumi, using what she claimed to be "the most useful magical art", being that of matter replication through expansion of sub-atomic particles.

Under the laws of psychics I knew, this was impossible, but at this point I simply took it for granted, as free food was free food, and was excellent for having no doubt been nothing more than carbon and nitrogen atoms seconds before.

We departed from the classroom with the 3 o'clock bell, bidding Tsuruya goodbye. She gave Mikuru a hug before dashing off, sitting in TOM's hands as he waded through the crowd of students, his lumbering thuds fading into the drone of voices and footsteps.

We turned to each other as Haruhi began to lead us to the flight of stairs where remedial classes were held. As we neared the top of the flight of stairs, she turned to us, leaning on the banister.

"Alright, we have an hour to get into position. Yuki-chan, Emiri-san, get going to the roof of this building. The entrance is at the end of this hallway."

She pointed through the double doors, down a long hallway, completely devoid of students, or anyone, for that matter.

"The rest of you are going to follow me; we're going to the upperclassman's building, and setting up. Koizumi, grab some disrupting circles from the club room while we're on our way out. Kyon, go with Koizumi and get some smoke bombs, they're in the cupboard above my desk. Mikuru, come on, we've got to set the trap."

As everyone left to do their duties, we approached the double doors, only to discover them to be locked. Not missing a single beat, Emiri headbutted the window, shattering it into thousands of pieces. She leaned through the window, unlocking it from the inside. Looking back to me, she pulled a shard of glass from her forehead, letting a fine trickle of blood drip down to her mouth, which she licked with a wild glint in her deep blue eyes. She held the door open for me, as she wiped the blood on her sleeve, leaving a smear of red on the sleeve.

We headed to the end of the hallway with no further distractions, before coming to a ladder mounted to the wall which led to the roof. I went first, discovering that it too, was locked, and that no amount of head-smashing was going to break through the thick steel manhole of a latch.

Acting unperturbed, Emiri set her cannon down on the ground, and reached into her skirt, pulling out a vial of green liquid. She then pulled out a white handkerchief...which made me wonder why she didn't wipe the blood on the handkerchief, and not her sleeve.

Emiri poured some of the green liquid onto the handkerchief, before quickly climbing the ladder, pressing the cloth against the lock. A sizzling sound was slightly audible, and after a second Emiri's hand disappeared as the metal was being eaten away by the corrosive material on the cloth. She pushed the manhole up, before climbing up onto the roof, turning back to me, and gesturing for her cannon.

I sighed, but accordingly bent over and picked up the heavy weapon. I lifted with my knees, but still felt the weight. I held it by the butt-stock, allowing her to grab it by the barrel and pull it through the hatch with relative ease, leaving me to wonder about her strength. I climbed through the hatch and closed it behind myself, restoring the condition of the metal with a variation of the magic Tsuruya had used at lunch, as it was easy to learn, and she had taught me how to use it on simpler materials. I quietly thanked her in my head.

After my quick fix, I walker over to Emiri, who was setting up her gun on the edge of the rooftop. She was setting it on a bi-pod, and affixing a butt-pad to the rear of it. She then pulled a lever above the trigger, opening the barrel. Grabbing her sling-bag, she opened it, taking out a single, massive round. The bullet itself was much bigger around than Emiri's hand, such that she had to remove it from the bag with both hands. Emiri carefully slotted the projectile into place and closed the barrel with the same lever. She closed the bag, setting it aside, before kneeling down next to the rifle, peering down the sights. She sighed heavily, before turning back to me.

"And now we wait. Take a seat, it's going to be almost half an hour before the fun begins." I sat down cross-legged on the opposite side of her rifle.

She pointed to the other building, where, in the corner of one of the floors, Haruhi and Mikuru could be seen, lighting the whole floor with grids of swirling runes.

"They're setting up a system of spells that, when activated, will place the entire area under a form of time distortion. That means, in our case, anyone who is seen as hostile will not be able to think clearly, as their metaphysical beings will be in an entirely different space as their physical being. It's a bit complicated, but Asahina-san can do it wonderfully, and Haruhi has massive reserves of mana to draw on to exponentially increase the area of effect, as well as its power."

As she finished speaking, a red flash lit the windows on the floor below, drawing our attention. In a flash, Emiri's head was on the sights of the rifle, looking at the disturbance, unable to see much due to the height difference.

"For the love of shaz! That red light was Koizumi's shadow arrow!" She turned to me.

"They must be in trouble. That guy was protected by some mercs, and we need to keep Mikuru casting until we ensnare that Foster guy so I can give him a new breathing tube. Yuki, jump across the gap and crash their party!"

She pointed over the 10 meter gap, which I leaned over, eying the drop with a calculating eye.

"Is that even safe Emir-agghhhhhhh!"

Before my sentence was even finished, Emiri had grabbed me and chucked me out into the empty air like I was a baby pigeon who refused to fly.

As I fell, I thought that Emiri did have good aim, as I sailed straight through the windows that were constantly alight with flashing lights, smashing through the windows, before rolling, then subsequently, jumping to my feet, chakram in my hands, ready to fight off the threats.

And threats they were. Several hulking figures with full face helmets were facing Koizumi and Kyon, who were evading them with the use of smoke bombs and arrows that refracted a distracting dance of shadows all around them. The figures were moving quite sluggishly, as though the air itself was fighting against them, unwilling for them to proceed towards the Brigade members.

'Even with Mikuru's spell, these guys are still a force to be reckoned with.'

Well that was a nasty shock. Haruhi's voice was talking to me.

'Of course I am Yuki! I'm providing support telepathically. Anyways, these guys that have their back to you are called Juggernauts. They're a merc outfit that does security details, and they're pumped full of so many drugs that even with the Seal of Forbidden Continuance, their instincts are still forcing their bodies to move and attack. This is causing some pretty significant nerve damage though, so a quick slice to the back of the knees and neck, after removing the helmet of course, should put them out the action...permanently. I'm sitting in Mr. Foster's office, having a nice chat with our man, and once you're done down there, I'm gonna let Emiri have her fun, then we're out of here.'

This entire speech took mere milliseconds to register in my mind, so these Juggernauts had not realized my presence yet. I lunged for the one closest to me, who was attempting to swing a large claymore at Koizumi, stopping his blade with a sideways hit from my curved blade. The force of my hit knocked the blade out of his hands, but his sheer mass moved into me and sent me crashing to the floor, at an angle where it was difficult to roll, so I settled for flopping down, rolling lengthwise, then scrambling to my feet. I was almost up when I was kicked swiftly in the ribs by another one, as my first fall had sent me into the middle of the crossfire. I was sent careening across the hallway, coming to a rest among the splintered remains of a doorway.

Gathering myself and staggering to my feet, I darted through a cloud of smoke and jumped, catapulting myself onto the face of the Juggernaut who was now retrieving his sword. I didn't give him the chance, grabbing it in the ring of my chakram and wrenching it off, revealing a grizzled face, staring at me with malice. It attempted to bite me with large, tombstone-like yellow teeth, but I just leaned back and slit its throat with the elegant blades.

It kept attacking, only redoubling its efforts after the blood was free flowing. The beast attempted to remove me from its head, but the armor was too large and its hands didn't come within a foot of myself. It tried to stumble towards Kyon, but using my body weight as a counter, I leaned it away from him. I put several more slices on its throat, face, and head, even jumping to its back to plant more on the back of its neck, before I given sage advice by Haruhi.

'Your daggers Yuki! Lodge your daggers in its skull! The clotting agent these guys inject into themselves is corrosive upon contact with air once its mixed into the make-up of the brain cells!'

I grabbed its head with my knees as I swapped the chakram for my weighted daggers with serrated edges, performing a swift overhead strike with them, planting them straight into the roughly shaved scalp, feeling the bone shatter underneath the pressure, and watching the gray brain matter begin to leak out. I rode it for another minute before its strength began to wane, all the while pulling on the daggers protruding from its skull, this way and that, to cause it to stumble in a direction towards other Juggernauts, distracting them enough that Koizumi and Kyon could stop for a minute and regain their stamina. They grinned sheepishly at me, while I just shrugged, finally jumping off the large man as he fell to the ground, moving no longer.

I ran by Kyon, being followed by one of the remaining three Juggernauts, before doubling around to grab my daggers. I wiped them clean of organic matter on the sides of its head, leaving two long red marks that crossed in the center.

As I did this, I watched Kyon and Koizumi with one eye as Koizumi distracted one and Kyon stabbed the other one right through with the sword that the dead one had dropped. It scrabbled at the sword's intersection point in between the intersecting chest plates, but it was no use, and after several seconds, it too weakened and fell to the ground with a grunt of pain.

Planting his foot on its chest, Kyon attempted to remove the massive blade, but it was fruitless. He left it there, propping the man up on it, like a one ton dead weight.

The remaining soldier looked between us, and started to run away, up the stairs. As he cleared the floor's limits, his movements greatly sped up, as he was now outside of Mikuru's enchantment. I heard Haruhi curse in my head, then felt a surge from her, almost like she was waiting for something.

As we turned the corner to give chase, we all got the hint to what this was simultaneously.

Standing down the hallway about 20 meters was Haruhi, holding Mr. Foster in front of her like a human shield, with a large, menacing-looking dagger held millimeters to his throat. The Juggernaut was frozen in place, his legs becoming one with the floor through some sort of magic causing the floor tiles to merge with the metallic boots he wore. No matter how much he struggled, the spell would not give, and his lack of a weapon led him to take off his helmet, before swiftly throwing it directly at Haruhi.

Haruhi ducked, leaving the helmet to smash through the window before falling to earth. The sound of the glass tinkling to the ground brought me to my senses, and I ran up behind the stuck man with my daggers and slit his throat as a ninja would. I didn't even think of doing it, yet I was suddenly on the ground in front of him, staring into the white milky eyes as his throat dangled out, held into the neck by one long strand of sinewy flesh. In the quickly descending silence, Haruhi sighed.

"That was quite a finisher Yuki, but that's neither here nor there. Help me drag Mr. Foster here downstairs, the others will clean up the mess."

I grabbed Mr. Foster by the legs, as he attempted to wrestle free, but Haruhi simply reached down and twisted his arm till it snapped. He screamed in pain and struggled no longer.

I carried hs feet while Haruhi grabbed his arms, so I could see his eyes the entire trip downstairs. His eyes belied stony feelings of acceptance to his fate, while at other times it was simply the unrelenting terror of knowing death was coming, and being unable to stop it. Once we got to the lower floor, I set his feet down gently to the floor, but Haruhi continued, dragging him roughly along on his stomach to the location where a window had been opened. Looking out the open window, I could see the large barrel and cloud of neon green hair on the roof adjacent to ourselves. Haruhi took out her spellbook and flicked through it, before muttering an incantation quickly, before Mr. Foster rose into the air, ropes appearing around his arms and legs. Haruhi leaned him against the wall, then walked away, beckoning to me. I stopped in front of the man looking into his eyes, which were pleading with me.

I stopped for a moment, before taking out a white kerchief, affixing it before his eyes, watching his eyes form into a small smile before hearing Haruhi shout out to me, leaving him behind.

The gunshot was unlike anything I had ever heard, seemingly rocking the world on its axis, and heading back into the hallway to retrieve the "prize", I was sickened by the sight of it. Bones picked clean of flesh lay in piles, the flesh itself spread thinly throughout the whole hallway, creating a sickly red sheen on all it covered. The only intact piece was his head, as Emiri had enchanted her bullet to leave the head intact. It was stuck in a permanent scram of agony, as though its entire world was nothing but an endless tune of pain and sadness.

And who knows? Maybe he had a good reason for what he did. But it didn't matter.

We gave the head to the boy's mother in the medical wing, who gave us a look of gratitude that left me quite conflicted. According to them, this type of renegade justice was the law of the land, and led to a lower crime rate, as those who committed crimes had to be ready to pay the price at any time.

I agreed with this, yes, but deciding the punishment to be death is a little off for me. Though what worries me more is that I enjoyed the exhilarated feeling I attained from being locked in combat with others, where only one person will come out on top, and alive.

I liked it...and I'll definitely follow Miss Suzumiya on her journey's for now.

Maybe, now that I'm not an interface, I can just be a part of this world, and not even attempt to return it to how it "was"? Perhaps this IS the future for us.

I'd like that.

I'd like that a lot.

As I fall asleep tonight, I have a feeling I'll have a smile on my face, thinking these thoughts...

**A/N: And THAT, my friends, is how a straitjacket evolves into a Popsicle stick! More on that later.**

**IF ITS POPSICLE, ITS POSSIBLE! :D**

**...yeah, that's all I got. What were you expecting, a eulogy for the dude who just got offed by Team Dai-Awesome?...nope. Well, You can have part of his chest cavity, if you really want...**

Also, fun little riddle/mystery for ya! In what way is it that out of all the Haruhi characters, I am most like Shamisen, the male calico cat? You get a cookie if you get it right! :3

**Tuesday of Week 1 of September, COMPLETE.**


	7. Slow Day

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 7: Slow Day

**A/N: Anonymous reviews are the best. Truly. (long author's note is long)**

**Anon6: I took the liberty of fixing the spelling mistakes as soon as I read that review. The whole thing about the revolver cannon is it being based off this Mauser anti-aircraft cannon I saw at a museum. Originally it was going to be a Lahti L-39, but according to my timeline that would have never been developed due to Finland kinda freezing its arse off in private. Much wikipedia and googling later, and I found the cannon in question to be called a revolver cannon...then I said, "hey, why not stretch it a bit and make it be a literal revolver, with more crazy?" Thus, the terror-inducing man-portable cannon of doom was born!**

**Now, on with the plot!**

Upon awakening in my bed the next morning, I was greeted by a rancid smell wafting through my nostrils. I climbed out of bed, attempting to locate the smell, locating it quickly, my nose leading me to my weapons, which I had left on a wooden table in the main sitting room.

Both of the daggers still had blood and various chunks of flesh encasing them, to the point that a small ring of blood had dripped down to the table in the shape of the chakram it had been resting on previously. I sighed, looking for something to clean them with. I went into the bathroom and located a small cloth in the closet, above where the bath towels were located. I soaked it in cold water, before wringing it out. Heading back to the table, I began to wipe the blades clean. The stains began to come out after several minutes, and in a few more, the silver blade of one dagger was sparkling clean. At this point Emiri walked out of a guest bedroom into the main room, fully dressed in a black miniskirt and a checkered red and black jacket that looked to have seen better days.

Looking at myself performing my cleaning, she began laughing heartily to the point of leaning against the woodwork so as to be able to catch her breath, causing me to stop and look at her with a feeling of annoyance flash through me I waited semi-patiently for her to finish, having put my blades down. Once she was done, she came over to sit on the table I was sitting at.

"You know there's a basic spell that does the same thing?"

Picking up the chakram that was more thoroughly soaked in human blood, and pressed her hands against its handle on either side, leaving the blade horizontal, ever so slowly dripping blood to the wooden floor. A faint glow of yellow began to emit from between her fingers, and she pulled her hands away vertically, leaving the blade suspended in a haze of yellow light. With a twitch of her right hand, which was on top, the blade began to rotate. Slowly at first, but quickly gained speed, spinning fast enough to hear the air itself being sliced by it, as it began to whistle. After a few seconds, the blood and other deritrus plaguing the blade began to fly off the weapon into nothingness as though it were being sucked into an unseen black hole.

After slowing down and stopping, which took an additional 5 or so seconds, Emiri closed her hands again, before swapping it to one hand and inspecting her handiwork. She then handed it back to me with a small chuckle and a smirk, then proceeded to hum a familiar tune in a low tone.

There was not a single speck of anything solid or liquid on the blade; in fact, it looked even better than when I had first taken them out the day before. I returned the freshly clean chakram to its place near the door, as I was not dressed in my daily attire yet. I turned to Emiri, who was making a motion similar to what Kyon had referred to as "air-guitaring", though he said it with a small amount of distate.

I snapped my fingers, stopping her from her activity, looking at me with a smug smile and an eyebrow waggle that even I wouldn't be able to miss. I cut to the chase, hoping to avoid excessive teasing.

"Would you be so kind as to teaching me that ability? You claimed that it was basic, so it should be easy to do, right?"

Emiri looked me up and down before replying.

"Sure thing Yuki-chan, but I'll do it when we're in the Brigade room."

I rolled my eyes, not taking so kindly to Emiri's stalling.

"And why not? It shouldn't take long."

She looked at me again, before laughing and pushing herself of the table, walking over to the door.

"That may be, but there's two reasons. One being that we have to leave for school in a few, and second being that you're covered in another man's brains and blood, and this technique requires clean hands."

I looked down to myself, realizing that I was indeed rather dirty by this point. My loose, white sleep wear was covered in red and grey spots, and rather damp from the water as well. I let out a small, but still audible gasp, which Emiri laughed at. I glared at her, before quickly retreating to my bedroom to remove the offending articles of clothing and put on my attire for the day. This consisted of what could be considered a tank top, but was sewn from a mixture of materials, mostly silk, and extremely baggy, dark green pants that were adorned with a fair amount of pouches and seemed to be made out of the same material that parachutes were made from. Also in my wardrobe I discovered several bands, rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other accessories. I was partial to a strip of 8 black bands, each of them closed with a screw of a different color, matching the main colors of the rainbow. I put those on the left arm, and a single thick white bracelet on the right. The white bracelet was actually a concealed vial of poison, as I had discovered, and contained enough neurotoxin to kill an elephant, as my enhanced sense of smell has remained, alerting myself to the neurotoxin contained in the bracelet in the first place, as well as the slowly decaying flesh from earlier. I finished with my attire by putting some of my hair into one strip that was slightly longer than the others, and hung off to the left of my face, coming to about an inch above my shoulder. It was a random move, but I took some comfort in it, as it defined me as well...me.

I walked out of my bedroom minutes later, looking more parts aspiring club DJ than I did super-ninja-assassin-dagger-woman, but I preferred the look. The clothing was vastly more comfortable, and the neurotoxin left me with a backup tool in case I was relieved of my weaponry somehow. As a plus, the holders for the blades were carefully hidden in the back of my shirt, allowing for less straps and other elements that hindered my range of movement. Walking over to the table, I picked up and strapped my blades to my back and calves, marveling at the greater freedom of movement.

Emiri looked up from the book she was reading while waiting for me, and smiled wryly.

"Nice look there |ain."

I just looked at her oddly. I did not know what she meant by Lain, or even whether she was talking to me or not.

"Pardon?" I stood up, the chakram swaying with the vertical motion. "Never mind, it was this DJ who was always around Cyberia a couple years ago...she always wore these ridiculous parachute pants and a beanie with a teddy bear face on it."

She laughed it off, getting up and throwing her book, "Seventy Four Ways to Kill a Man from 1000 Yards", onto the table. I eyed it for a split second, noting the lock pick on the cover, before we proceeded to exit the apartment.

Arriving to the the empty club room, Emiri wasted no time in showing me how to clean things with magic, which I must admit, will make things a lot easier, especially if we turn into a lean, mean, criminal murdering, loose cannon justice outfit. Which is also cool.

The spell itself was quite simple in principle, and worked on mostly everything, regardless of shape or size, though the larger the object and the more mass being removed, the more magical energy it required to dispel.

The gist of the spell was to maintain contact with two locations of the object, to allow for two seperate channels of magical energy to spread onto the object. Upon enveloping the object, it would become suspended in place. From this point, the technique of the second part differs from person to person, but Emiri showed me two methods.

The first method was the one she herself used and preferred. This caused the object to spin at an intense speed, during which a small pulse of magic is sent through the object, causing any foreign surface materials to be pushed off and be broken into infinitesimally small pieces, effectively disintegrating them into quarks.

The second method was slightly different from the first, and required more energy, but could be used on a much wider variety of objects. This required the same method of contact with the hands, but worked better the farther away the channels, in this case hands, were from each other. One channel would be emitting a positive charge of magic, the other a negative charge. Since opposites attract, and due to both of them coming from the same source, the opposites would attract with great force. This takes advantage of the extremely high wavelength that magical energy travels on. By overloading the object with two inverse magical energies, it causes the actual structure of the object to basically check itself for anything foreign, and due to the volatility of opposite energies, cause those foreign materials, in this case physical waste, to basically be completely annihilated, leaving the object in pristine condition.

Kyon and Koizumi entered in the middle of Emiri's lesson to me, politely moving to the opposite end of the room to allow Emiri to continue with our lesson after we greeted each other casually. This was fortunate on their part, as I attempted the first method with a dirty eraser, resulting in said eraser being flung rather forcefully across the room, stopping only when it embedded itself in the wall with a loud bang. Emiri had laughed out loud at this, claiming I could use the spell as a weapon if I did it like that, but I only gave Kyon a nasty shock, as it went close enough to his head to ruffle his hair, and rudely interrupting their chess game as well.

After sorting out the mishap with the eraser, we tried the spinning method with a dusty book, and it appeared to be that second time is the charm, for I was able to safely clean the book without killing anything. Yes, there was a bug on the wall where the eraser impacted. I feel sorry for the little guy.

It was almost second period before Mikuru showed up, sweaty and red-faced, carrying her longsword limply behind her, scraping it on the floor, leaving a thin line in the wood.

We had moved on to the second method by this time, which I found much easier. I could choose what type of path the energy took through the object, and by taking efficient paths, did not have to expend as much magical power as Emiri had first detailed it to entail. By simple coating the outermost layers with energy, the same effect was achieved, with the bonus of not taking as long to perform. I was able to clean an entire furnace of ash in less than 10 seconds, which was pretty cool, even in my opinion.

We kind of looked at Mikuru with half an eye when she walked in, but the sword drew our attention, except for Emiri, who had pulled out a deck of cards and began to deal for Solitaire. Ignoring her, I looked back to Mikuru.

She set the sword down on a table and had moved to the corner of the room with the stove, beginning to prepare herself some tea, when she stopped, and looked back at the rest of the room, catching us looking at her intently, in a way that was creepily coordinated.

She looked at each of us, before turning around fully and sighing.

"I was sparring with Tsuruya and TOM...you guys DO know that the first two periods are either extra group time, OR physical activities, right?"

Emiri flipped a card and coughed loudly. I gave her a dirty look. Rolling my eyes, I looked back to Mikuru, who was starting to drink her tea, looking back at us with one eyebrow raised.

"No, I didn't, and judging from their faces, neither did the others. Though I think Emiri did."

Affirmative cough in response. Typical.

"Anyways, what type of activities are there? Sparring is obviously one, as you just said, but other than that...?"

I left the question open, waiting for her to fill it in.

And fill it in she did. In her own special way. Which involved choking on her tea. Emiri snickered quite audibly at that.

"Well, you can go run obstacle courses out on the fields, there's a track and field club that meets in the morning, an archery club in the gym, sparring between students is in the smaller gym in the Science wing, and a shooting range for firearms practice is in the Engineering wing...there are others, I just don't know of them. Oh! There's a mage's club on the 2nd floor of this building, though it's a bit more...personal, than the others. That club is for practicing experimental spells...on each other, no less. Tsuruya claims its safe, but I wouldn't if I were you." She rolled her eyes after this explanation

Finishing her explanation, she resumed drinking her tea. I looked over to Koizumi, who was holding his bow in front of him and waggling his eyes at Kyon, who sighed and got up.

"I'm not going to go to the archery club with you, I like the sound of sparring."

Koizumi sighed, still waggling his eyebrows, which was in itself rather unsettling. I have perfect motor control and I cannot do the same thing he is doing...whatever that is.

"Fiiiine...how about those obstacle courses then? A little give on both sides, we both stay together, and no one gets hurt."

Upon hearing this, Emiri snorted, then laughed while picking up her cards. Putting them away, she walked to where Kyon and Koizumi were sitting, standing over them while putting her hands on her hips.

"Those obstacle courses would WRECK. YOUR. SHIT. You may have had some easy ones at school before, but these are straight up 'kill ninjas on a daily basis' courses, built by a man who does nothing more than just that, kill ninjas. There's lava pits, poison gas, spiked pits, automated machine gun nests, invisible traps, Tesla coils, and of course, the people who run the thing are adversaries for anyone who enters it. They go balls to the wall in there. I've seen one guy using an anti-tank mine rigged with a room full of corrosive gas. As soon as the room was breached, that entire room was blown to smithereens. They use that death trap to train for sieges on fortified, emplacements. It's the closest thing to a war-zone you'll get outside of going back in time and watching World War I unfold, well, pre-Necrolocalypse, of course.

Anyways, I went through there on Sunday with some of the NeTHaCKS, a small group of thieves and rogues, and I had to drag half of them through the second half of it. If there weren't any advanced medics around, that whole group would be deader than Shamisen at a mechanical dog show."

Kyon face-palmed at the last part, which I giggled at, and Koizumi quickly retracted his statement about wanting to do obstacle courses.

Mikuru, having finished her tea, walked in between the thinkers (you could practically see the gears turning in their heads), and stood next to Emiri, who was giving Koizumi and a surprisingly deep stare.

"Um, you know you guys can just hang out in here...or just walk around and hang out somewhere...it's not required to do anything, this place is focused pretty heavily on the groups and clubs anyways. The academic portion is sort of tacked on anyways, from what Tsuruya tells me..."

They both perked up at that, Koizumi especially, who noticed Emiri's thousand-yard stare on him, who leaned back in his chair to escape it. Emiri proceeded to stand up, grab her things from the table, wave farewell to me, and walk out with a clang of the heavy iron door.

I shook my head. She was quite the enigmatic person, even on a good day. Koizumi and Kyon both got up, grabbing their things as well. I looked up at them in surprise.

"Leaving so soon? Or are you just following Emiri...hm?"

They both blushed furiously, which made me ponder the implications of what I had just said, before Kyon pointed to the steam-clock mounted to the wall behind me and walked closer to me, grabbing the sword he had brought today, a large thick blade that was white on one side and jet black on the other, off the table.

"Of course not Yuki! It's just that it's time for us to get to class...or whatever you'd call it...class discussion more like." He muttered the last part quietly, as Koizumi did not hear him.

I gave a light laugh, which made him smile, before getting up, retrieving my own blades from the table and leaving behind him, closing the door behind me.

Though it made me wonder...what was Haruhi doing in the morning if she wasn't coming to the clubroom?

She had obviously been to the room and left before we ever arrived this morning, because I had spied a large pile of money, possibly over one hundred thousand yen, hidden underneath the other papers on her desk, along with a note written in Haruhi's own handwriting: 'The PerKill bonus for secondary bounties'.

I had known better than to disturb it, yet that did not stop me from thinking on the subject. I had a sinking feeling that Haruhi was doing something stupid, or dangerous, but most likely both, in the morning time before we met up with her.

To be honest, it doesn't really concern me, but I guess curiosity killed the alien-robot cat.

I meant me, but I don't think the expression works as well here. Well, I got my point across, and it's a definite: I, for some strange reason, really like this world. I know I probably shouldn't, and this is definitely at the expense of some, people's lives, but I am really just enjoying being here. The seamless blend between technology and magic is stunning, and despite having analyzed it multiple times, it is just as wondrous and magnificent at it was the first time.

The rest of the day passed much as the first one did, with the exception of Tsuruya not being there to talk to me, though TOM was, who claimed she "had some family business to attend to", which still didn't explain anything, or why she was gone and he was there. I passed the time in the room by practicing cleaning things, like the desk I was sitting at. It worked well, but it was too easy, so I started to put my hands on the floor and concentrate on other people's desks, and the effect was hilarious.

Watching one guy try to inscribe a word on the desk, only to have it fade before his eyes, made me fall out the chair giggling for some reason. It was most peculiar.

After school, I went down to the fields at the far end of the complex, where I had not bothered to go before, to see the obstacle course Emiri had been going on about, and she was wrong about it.

What she said about it was a complete and total understatement.

The entire field's grass was dead and withered, some of it still burning, ash floating through the air lazily. The entirety of the course was built up to look like a 19th century Eastern European castle, complete with battlements, high stone walls, and a large, imposing entrance.

To make it more ridiculous, mechanical beasts flew around above the structure, dropping acid on random parts of the exterior, which was coated in broken ladders and had multiple active machine gun nests firing out from the entrance. The drawbridge leading to the entrance was above a small lake of shimmering lava, which curiously enough did not set the wooden doors alight.

Standing almost 10 meters away, the heat washed over me in waves, and the acrid smell of burning wood, scalded flesh, and hot lead was wafting from the structure as well. Looking up the walls, a lone figure was still moving on the exterior of the castle, holding a buckler and a short sword, fighting off skeletons that rose from the lava to meet him. With a cry heard above the sounds from the machine guns, the skeletons flew back into the lava, having been knocked from atop the stone wall by a thrust from the shield. Pushing forward, he ran inside the tower atop the wall, when a machine gun nest started to swivel towards me, firing warning warning shots.

It certainly got my attention, as I took my chakram in both hands in one fluid motion and ran to the side of the nest. It tracked my motions smoothly and I spun my chakram in reverse motions, surprisingly deflecting the bullets to the side, but with each round I was pushed back, as the rounds were quite large and had a lot of momentum behind them.

I attempted to just run away from the castle, but as fate would have it, another set of skeletons had showed up behind me, their jaws cackling in laughter as they pushed me forward into the grindhouse, back towards the entrance and the ladders beyond.

As soon as I began to start taking the brunt of the force again, the fire rate began to decrease, and I could see the barrel sticking out of the wall began to turn bright red, before being pulled inside the wall, abruptly bringing an end to the maelstrom of bullets. Taking my chance, I ran through the doors and over to the ladders, jumping, planting my left foot on the 4th rung, and kicking off, forcing myself off, my momentum sending me to the top of the wall, past a few other students who were fighting skeletons and what appeared to be flaming golems on a lower floor.

I landed lightly on the top of the wall, looking both ways before crossing. Crossing blades with a skeleton, that is. Though since its sword was on the inside of my chakram, one tug sent the rusty sword off into the lava, and the skeleton dived into the lake after it in a rather comical fashion. Taking another look at the walkway, I spotted a ladder a dull shade of gray, almost invisible on the ashen charred brickwork of the wall, leading up to a locked hatch. I ran for the ladder while hitching my chakram to my belt, taking out a single dagger. Leaping onto the third rung of the ladder, i grabbed the 6th rung with my right hand, shoving the dagger straight through the hinge of the hatch in the ceiling, breaking it and forcing it up onto the floor. Using the momentum from the motion, I moved through the hatch and land in a cat crouch, ready for any threats in the room.

Seeing none, I straightened up, only to be decked in the back of the head by a heavy object, being knocked to the floor. Dodging out of the way, I rolled to the side of the object, seeing that it was a satchel full of papers bound tightly together. A single glance showed the outer papers to be covered in English X's and O's, along with being stained with dark spots throughout them.

Looking for the source of the object, I looked straight up. The ceiling of the room was had retracted to reveal a figure standing on a platform several meters above me, with several more bundles of papers on the platform with him. Dressed in a black robe, I could not discern who it was, only that small amounts of liquid dropped from him onto my face, eyes, and tongue. Tasting it, the liquid was sweet. Human tears.

Another package was thrown at me, which I promptly sliced in half with my daggers, which were now at the ready, causing an anguished scream to emit from the robed figure. With a yell, he pushed all of the sacks off of the platform and jumped after them, shedding his robe in the fall and drawing a long, serrated blade that was covered in nicks, scratches, and imperfections.

I had moved to the edge of the circular chamber, I watched as he stood up, shook himself, and revealed his face to be puffy with red eyes, but had a look of fury in his eyes seen unequaled in magnitude.

Except for that one time when I acted oblivious to the fact that I was playing an explicitly rated game when the rest of the SOS Brigade walked in. Kyon looked about ready to give me a warning, but did not, most likely out of fear that I would harm him, with my status as getting impaled to Asakura put me in special regard in his eyes. Enough about that however.

The crying man swung at me, allowing me no time to think of an action, and allowing instinct to take over. I threw my dagger upwards in a spin, catching his thin blade, hitting it to the side, and causing the man to stumble from the momentum of his sword to be put off by the rapidly spinning, but well weighted, object. Dashing towards him, I grabbed my dagger out of the air by the hilt as he stumbled and attempted to slash at me, but only led to stick his crooked sword into the thick wooden floor, lodging it quite firmly. Not missing a beat, he let go of his sword and spun around, grabbing my ankle before I laned, and held my aloft upside down. In a knee-jerk reaction, I punched him where the sun doesn't shine, causing him to release his grip on me and collapsing to the ground, allowing me to perform a handspring and land lightly on the floor. Turning to face my adversary, I could hear his groans of pain and saw his inability to stand. I grabbed him by the lapel of his ragged shirt and dragged him to his feet, grunting with the effort.

After studying the ragged person for a few seconds, I deduced their identity. It was none other than the school's wannabe womanizer Taniguchi.

His was pouting, still doubled over in pain. He started mumbling incoherently, but it resolved itself into speech quickly.

"I just wanted to show her I could create something worthwhile...unlike myself, I guess. I don't even know who you are...can you just leave?"

He looked up pleadingly, and truly didn't get it. So I made a move for his sword while he watched without making a noise, and I righted it, before hurling it straight into the ceiling far above. It didn't come back down.

I decided to add insult to insult to injury, because Taniguchi was never exactly polite to me, so I gave him a swift kick to redouble his pain, before scampering down the ladder while chuckling. The entire structure had gone quiet at some point, but the lava still bubbled slowly, almost contentedly. Upon leaving the castle, I looked back to see the tower was beginning to lower in on itself, before becoming a shorter, wider structure. The sun was setting in a myriad of reds and pinks and oranges just below the tower, so I grabbed my bag from the bleachers nearest to the castle, and left for home, hoping Emiri wouldn't ask too many questions about today's events.

**A/N: A day late and probably not very good...oh well, better late than never! Had so much going on, I haven't even started working on something that's supposed to be done for Saturday...O.O**

Anyways, next chapter will be another contract, I planned this one a lot better than the abomination above, so yeah...

Hope you enjoyed it, make sure to review!

Nihlius~


	8. Universal Healthcare

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 8

Well, it turned out that my little romp through Taniguchi's funhouse of absolutely unspeakable content was regrettable. Taniguchi's started hounding me about it before I even woke up the next day.

So it was Wednesday morning, and I awoke to a sharp rapping on the windows to my room. I probably don't need to remind you about this, but I'm in a 3rd floor apartment, and Taniguchi was lying on the ledge outside, knocking on my window. At thus point, I just try to take everything in stride, because honestly, I can't even begin to understand all of this crazy shit, excuse my Middle English.

I let him into my room after checking to see if he was attempting to kill me, but unless you consider a fancily written letter addressed to me from the administration office of North High dangerous, he was not there to kill me. In fact, he neatly wet himself when he saw my shelf full of weapons. Wait, no, make that several shelves. Or the wall of guns. Or was it the bookcases of what I have come to find out are spellbooks?

Oh, right, the lette-wait. If it's addressed to me, wouldn't it be in my postbox outside? I cast a side long look at him, and saw exactly what I was looking for: a set of lockpicks sticking out of his leather vest.

I sighed, going back to the letter. I cut it open with my fingernail and removed the crisp piece of parchment. It still smelled fresh, like it had been written only a few hours ago.

You're asking why I'm sniffing the paper? I have my own little quirks you know! It's not like it's harmful, r-right?

A-Anyways, the paper reads as follows, in overly formal cursive script.

"To Miss Yuki Nagato,

It has come to our concern that you caused wanton damage to the property of Mister Taniguchi, in the form of breaking and entering, destroying magical constructs, personal artifacts, and reputations. As a form of punishment, you are to work in the medical wing of North High for the school day of Wednesday, September 18, until 5:30 P.M. No other administative action will be required.

Sincerely,  
Archmage Noctua"

I looked back at Taniguchi, brow furrowed.

"So, because I ruined your little survival games fun house, I have to work in the nurse's office for a day? Pushovers."

I gave a light laugh at that, and he began laughing as well, in an entirely different, and significantly more evil, tone. He walked around me before stopping right behind me.

"You haven't heard the horror stories, Yuki? That's even better. Your tendencies as a bookworm will leave you TOTALLY unprepared for this! Most people would known what to expect, but you're completely in the dark! Ha, and at first I thought Archmage Noctua-n was out of his senile, senile mind for letting you off easy. I hope you don't have a large breakfast, Yuki-chaaaaaan."

Okay, the way he sad -chan made me want to kick him in the nuts. So I did.

In my mind, anywas. He flinched in the real world though, so he must have caught the intent. Somehow. Whatever, I blame magic. I just gave him another look of utmost loathing, despite the fact that I felt no I'll will toward him. I just get a kick out of it. I'm terrible, huh?

"Uhhhhh, I'll...be...going...uh...now."

Without another word he jumped out the window, and I leaned out the window, watching his rapid descent. It turned out he was using some charm that he applied to his hands and feet, which were eneceloped in a glowing green light that kept him anchored firmly to the side of the stone building. I watched until he was on the ground and disappeared among the bland brown and black mess of morning commuters, before sighing, closing the windows, and getting ready for the day. I chose my so-called "lain" attire, but wore a plain white shirt that had more than a few stains on it, all of them blood. Skipping breakfast for the day, as Taniguchi MIGHT be right for once, I set off for school, noting Emiri has her alarm set for 9:45, obviously not planning on going to school until the classroom portion began. I let her sleep, and locked the door behind me, attempting to mentally prepare myself for what was sure to be a mentally exhausting day.

I arrived at school with plenty of time to spare, heading for the Administration building, which also housed the auditorium and medical wing. In a way that made no sense, the medical sing was on the 2nd and 3rd floors. I think it would make it more accessible to have an entrance on the ground floor, but I didn't think about it too much as I entered the waiting room at the front of the wing.

There were already no less than 6 students in various state of injury lined up on the wooden benches, with one of them holding his thumb in a clear bag full of ice.

I almost turned around and left right then, but I heard a familiar voice call out to me.

"Yuki-chan! You're the sempai that's going to be helping out here today?"

Tsuruya-chan had walked out of a closet on the side of the room carrying a myriad of medical supplies, most unsettlingly a bonesaw. I waved to her and walked towards her, trying not to look into any open wounds. Too bad they looked back at me.

"Um, I don't think I'm in the right place Tsuruya...and where's Tom?"

She grinned and led myself through a maze of hallways before we reached a room where an upperclassman was laying on a bed, covered in blisters, with a large cast around his leg.

"'Course you're supposed to be here Yuki! Archie himself came through here this little while ago, saying you'd be here all day! Well, Tom isn't nimble enough to work in these cramped quarters, so I built a more general purpose automaton in the past few days to assist in carrying stuff...and people...and some other things too! It's currently getting everything we'll need for the day for surgical supplies, and coming back here."

No sooner had she finished her explanation and set her armfuls of supplies onto a table next to blister guy, then a door on the other side of the room opened, and through it came the most...hm...to put it nicely...interesting robot I've seen.

It was low to the ground, with thickset limbs and a rather prehensile neck, leading to a face that had two large teeth fashioned out of railroad spikes, and a moving jaw that looked to have been part of the smokestack on a train. It's body was very smooth and round, and the top of it was aadorned with a flat platform, atop which a large quantity of bandages, surgical gauze, and bottles of pain medication sat. Despite it's loping gait, none of the suplies it carried were shaken around. It stopped in the middle of the room, before a quiet whirring sound could be heard from it, and the platform slid to the right of the machine, revealing a mechanical arm that had come out of its back and ended in a metallic human hand, which set the tray on the table , before retracting into itself.

"Arf!"

Tsuruya clapped her hands and smiled, before kneeling down and petting her creation.

"Good job Mel-nyan!"

She invited me to pet him, and I did, leading me to discover that despite the fact that he was constructed out of cold metal, he was quite warm to the touch. He made his little sounds when I petted him, and his eyes shone like that of a happy dog. After we were done, Tsuruya gave him new instructions, which he loped off to complete.

She turned back to me with a glassy look in her eyes.

"Melvin is the first automaton I've built entirely on my own. Tom's AI is powered by magic, and I didn't write the rune circle that first imbibed him with life. Melvin, on the other hand, I did one hundred percent. He's just as alive as Tom is, but he's a tad smarter than your trained hound. I tried getting him to be a pet that would be able to speak it's feelings, but I ran out of mana to be able to inscribe all 4096 registers of magic. I did only 1536 registers, which is more than enough for independent thought, feelings, and some vocalization, but it's not the end of days that I can't get him to recite Shakespeare."

She shook herself, looking to the guy with the blisters with a grimace.

"Alright, first order of business, Mr. Olzsta here needs to have that infected leg taken care of."

She grabbed the bomesaw and began spinning it up with a crazy look in her eye. The guy on the bed began trying to get out of the bed, but Tsuruya stopped the saw suddenly. She grabbed a large syringe full of amber colored liquid off the tray and stabbed it into the poor guy's stomach. He grunted in pain, but after a few seconds stopped struggling and fell back onto the bed.

Tsuruya threw the syringe backwards, which I grabbed an instant before it flew straight into the sensitive outer mebrane of my eyeball. I tossed it aside, where it landed neatly in the garbage can next to the door, because I am just that good.

Tsuruya waved me over to where she was, where she had removed this guy's pantleg, showing off a horribly disfigured leg, covered in blisters that were leaking a smelly yellow pus. Some of the blisters were so bad I could see the muscle tissue had dissolved and bone was easily visible. I felt my stomach attempt to retch, but my lack of eating made it impossible.

So I settled with gagging while Tsuruya remained unaffected. I swear, that's not natural. Tsuruya was pointing at the horrid thing while talking, so I drew in my revulsion for the moment and listened to my crazy friend.

"-are you even listening Yuki-nyan? Alright, I'll say it again. The reason we amputate so many thing isn't because we're all sick in the head. Well, not all of us anyways. It all has to do with the magical expenditure associated with each method of healing. When magic was first discovered, it was thought that we could stop amputating people because of the advent of restoration magic. But then it was discovered that it took an enormous emount of magical power to fix a grievous wound on a limb, like the tissue damage on Olzsta here. It was also determined that it was a much lesser amount of magical power spent when regenerating an entirely new, healthy limb. So it became obvious to the leading authorities of restoration magic to make amputation and subsequent rapid regneration the standard practice for serious injury, instead of simply attempting to restore an injured section of one's body to a previous state.

So what that means for is is that we're gonna lop off this guy's leg, and I'm going to regnerate it right quick. The blisters he has will be easily dispelled once the source of them, his leg, is no longer there. And he won't wake up until after I perform the regeneration technique either! Oh, the wonders of modern medicine, eh Yuki-nyoron?"

I just nodded, trying to wrap my head around the concept that trying to change the state of an already existing piece of matter could be more difficult than generating an entirely new piece of matter of the same size, shape, and composition. Giving up on that, I watched with a sense of morbid fascination as Tsuruya began to cut off the poor guy's leg. I wondered why he wasn't bleeding, even though she was cutting through major arteries like it was just a thong, but I noticed that the blood was clotted immensely on the inside of his artery. I fell over when Tsuruya told me to dispose of the leg, before throwing the whole limb at me, dripping pus and all. I had put on thick glves by this time, and gingerly picked up the severed limb, before proceeding to bring it to the chute that led to the incinerator.

Upo returning to the room, I was surprised to see The poor guy was not only awake, but walking around on his new leg, and he was no longer as pale as...well...me.

Anyways, he thanked us before requesting some privacy so he couldnput on his daily wear, which had been decontaminated last night, when he was apparently admitted, according to him.

"Yeah, I was helping my bud Marcel test a spell he was working on. It was supposed to get rid of acne, but you saw what it actually does...oh well, it happened to further the SCIENCE of magic!"

He had pointed a finger to the sky and shouted science, but he was allowed to leave after gathering his equipment from the medical lockup. He wore a fedora and had a belt that held a small ornamental sceptre and two long-barreled revolvers, each with a small bayonet affixed to them.

However, the rest of the day was an absolute nightmare.

Especially after Tsuruya ran out of magic and she had to tap into me to continue patching people up.

I swear, how is it that in one day, 46 people need to have limbs amputated and regrown, 128 people need painkillers for various injuries, and a whopping 51 people need bullets, arrows, knives, and other high-speed projectiles removed from them!

The worst part was definitely when a patient paid Tsuruya to not only allow him to keep his severed arm, but to request that we simply knock him out for the amputation, and to cut off the arm with his sword.

His sword was not the cleanest thing in the world. It was a massive sword, probably 3 meters long, and almost half a meter wide. Two tone black and gray steel, it had more than a few spits of dried blood, rust, moss, and other disgusting substances on it. It was so heavy that Tsuruya couldn't lift it, forcing me to cut off the creep's arm, which I found a strange enjoyment in. That is, until a spider crawled from the hilt onto my hand. I flipped out then, and dropped the sword, almost bisecting the weirdo at the waist. Speaking of weird, this guy has blonde hair that levitates. Like, even after I knocked him ournwith a rabbit punch to the nose, his hair still sat in the same position. It didn't help that his piercing blue eyes stayed open for the entirety of the regeneration of his arm.

So yeah, pretty boy with a huge sword was pretty creepy. I mean, we all know that the big sword was just overcompensating for something...in that case, was that even a guy?

Never mind, that's not important. What is important is the fact that I am now an expert in removing small caliber bullets from live patients. It turns out that most of the shooting range targets were actually duelist looking to heighten their situational awareness, though how that's done by getting shot at I'm not sure.

Most of the bullets were between 5mm and 10mm wide, but this one poor sucker got hit by a rifle round that would've killed the girl, if it hadn't been in her hand. She had been boxing some dude when she was hit. I don't know what's worse, the fact that I'm not even surprised at this point, or the fact that shooting range boxing is an acceptable substitutebti physical education in this school. I'd say it's a pretty close call.

Though the creepiest thing I saw all day was definitely the blonde...person, the most graphic, gory, absolutely not meant for human eyes thing I saw all day was the corrosive arrow I had to dig out of a freshman's...buttock. It had been angled in such a way that the tip of the arrowmwas  
Deep inside the left leg, and the feathers if the arrow were just barely visible on her buttock. I wouldn't have seen it as exceptionally bad until I made the incision in her thigh to remove the tip of the arrow. You know how I just said it was corrosive, right? Well, it rendered an entire chunk of the interior of her leg a dissolved purée of flesh, guts, and marrow with the consistency of toothpaste. Her cartoid artery poured out of a hole I poked in the bottom of her leg, into a jar. The muscle had been reduced to a pinkish film that had distinct lumps in it. The bone? It looked like and had the same consistency of whole milk. Bone should NOT be that way! Thankfully, this was before Tsuruya ran out of steam, so I didn't have to be on hand for the regeneration. I was too busy disposing of the poor freshman's left leg, as well as her left buttock, and a section of her groin.

I literally took a cart with half of this girl's lower body and dumped it into a fire pit. BY HAND. I was thankful for the clotting agent used, which prevented almost all bleeding. That's why the flow of...fluids from her leg was so unexpected. We're still not sure why the blood flowed freely as well.

At least I watched her walk out of the medical wing about an hour later. She claimed she was going to go kick the ever-loving shit out of the bastard who used corrosive arrows. It was Koizumi, as it turned out, but I didn't feel like trying to tell him to avoid a silver-haired-ass-kicking.

Anyways, after everything that happened, I was glad to finally be done with my day of servitude at the North High Medical Wing. It turns out Tsuruya had been there for the previous day as well because she was being punished as well. She had rigged a club room of an opposing group to the one she was part of with smoke bombs, but had neglected to make them with things that WOULDN'T cause itching and burning upon prolonged exposure. Which is totally what happened.

I laughed it off, and reminded myself to never offend Tsuruya or make her otherwise want to hurt me, ever. She's a mad scientist, and I respect that. Not to mention the fact that she builds sentient walrus robots in the space of 3 days like anyone could do it.

Well, I'm going to go to sleep now. I still haven't eaten anything yet today, because this one image of this girl's ankle snapped right off and the bone sticking out of her leg keeps on flashing into my mind and...it's not pretty. I should be fine by tomorrow. Maybe.

Oh, that reminds me. Right before the day ended Haruhi came and visited me in the Medical wing. First she berated me for getting into trouble, then told me that the SOS Brigade would be going on a little 'trip' tomorrow. She had given me a wink and a look that obviously meant that we were going to be going on a job tomorrow, and said we would meet up for our trip in the lobby of my apartment building again.

Ugh, that ankle image just happened again. Sleep Now!

A/N: Sorry for the hiatus, had some 'technical difficulties' on my end. (Hope I fixed the wall of text though. So hard to read my insanity all at once like that.)

Reviews are greatly appreciated, it's like author crack!

Bye-nii~ (yup, that's a habit now)


	9. IOU

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 9: I.O.U

**A/N: Hope this isn't too late! (Or short, for that matter.) I was fussing over how the plot was actually going to begin, then said "Screw it", and now I'm winging it. It worked okay so far, right?**

-

I tried to sleep in late, if only to remove any thoughts or mental images from the previous day's work. Like the veritable mountains of severed limbs, bodily fluids, and bullet wounds I had to deal with. This stream of happy thoughts was disrupted by Emiri bursting into my room fully dressed and leaping above my bed, and more importantly me, and delivering a brutal elbow slam to my stomach. I think I heard something crack.

Needless to say, I pushed her off my bed and got up, if rather painfully, to remove her from my room. She managed to scramble to her feet before I could land a hit on her kidneys. She was audibly gasping for air and giggling after she was out my range. I did not find any humor in the situation, so I remained still until she explained herself.

"Hee...hee...heh, hehehe...hee. I got you pretty good Yuki-chan! On any level, you had to get up anyways."

"And why is that? I think I can sleep in a little, I saw things yesterday that human eyes are not meant to gaze upon!"

"We're going on a job today. You know, a 'good chance of someone dying in a horrible fashion today' job."

The words had a physical effect on me, jolting me awake. I had completely forgotten the instructions Haruhi had given me yesterday. Though she had come to talk while I was retching into a garbage pail, so it was not completely crazy to think that I had missed part of it. Or all of it, for that matter. Nor was it crazy for Haruhi to tell Emiri to remind me if I forgot. It's like she KNOWS, or something.

Wow. Things really have changed. I think that's the first time I've forgotten anything in...uh, ever, I think. The DITE would not allow an interface to forget any experiences it had accumulated, so this was an entirely new experience. Rather frustrating, too.

Anyways, I hurried to get dressed, looking at the clock. 7:45, only allowing me 15 minutes before we were to meet in the lobby. At least they were respecting my privacy this time.

Now that I knew the nature of what a 'job' consisted of, I was able to dress for the occasion. I had disposed of the white shirt I wore the day before. It had collected 9 different types of bodily fluids on its' surface, and despite possessing the knowledge on how to clean it, I simply dropped it on the trash after changing into my pajamas the night before.

This led me to wearing the same general type of attire as I did for the previous assignment. Baggy pants, a pastel green vest with carrying loops stitched to the back, open-fingered leather gloves, bracers with compartments for knives, my poison-holding bracelets, and a black beanie with fluffy cat ears. I'm a sucker for fluffy things, okay?

Meeting Emiri in the living room with 4 minutes to spare, I placed my blades on my back, thighs, and in my bracers, and eyed Emiri as she say on the couch and read. The title of the novel was "The Danger Below" and the cover displayed a ladder descending into total darkness, the last rung covered in claw marks.

She looked up to me, saw me prepared, and closed her book with a snap. Getting up from her seat, she grabbed a bag next to the door which made dull metallic thumping noises as it moved.

"They're my cannon shells. They weigh 5.5kg a piece." Emiri explained offhandedly as she slung the bag over her shoulder while picking up her revolver cannon, which had been leaning against the wall next to the front door.

I simply raised an eyebrow to her statement. Five and a half kilograms was kind of a lot, and she must of have at least 20 of the things in the bag, maybe 30. That would be a combined weight of at least 110kg. Not exactly easy to carry on your back. Emiri makes it look pretty simple though. I'm beginning to believe that Emiri has somehow retained some of her abilities to manipulate data. This further isolates Emiri's position as nutcase with a big gun…..just like the guy in that movie. The one with the cat food. You know the one, right? Oh, and the robot!...which is creepily similar to Tom. I wonder if he has missile hands? What if he has missile hands?

Pushing the thought away, I led the way out into the hallway, heading towards to elevator. I heard the distinct click of Emiri locking the door, then rapid clunks as she rushed to keep up with me. She arrived at the elevator just as I entered it, turning around to be greeted by her pouting face.

"You're supposed to wait for me you know."

I just shrugged and replied as we were getting into the elevator, "That's what you get for being late."

The chime sounded, and Emiri pushed passed me to exit into the floor first.

I just stood there for a second, before saying, "Emiri, this is the first floor. The lobby is one floor down."

She whipped around in surprise, as I smirked as she attempted to get back on the elevator as the doors slid shut. She was unsuccessful. I had a quiet little laugh as the elevator continued on down to the lobby.

The others were already waiting for me, and to a lesser extent, Emiri. Haruhi turned to me, giving a characteristic frown.

"Yuki, where's Emiri-san? She lives with you, right? I might have to give her a penalty! Something to do with Mexican wrestlers, maybe…."

"She was mad at me for not waiting for her at the elevator, and stepped off on the first floor. She has to wait for the elevator to go back up to her. She won't be long."

Mikuru and Kyon both chuckled at this, before a loud crash and a louder boom were heard just outside.

Emiri walked in through the front entrance, twigs and glass shards sticking into her hair, her white outfit and miniskirt quite ruffled. Her rifle was smoking, and she had a caterpillar crawling on her sleeve.

"Don't. Ask."

The malice was almost palpable, and directed at me, but I lost it at that moment, falling to the floor and having a good long laugh. The rest of the SOS Brigade started laughing, but not at the same intensity or volume as myself.

I recovered and stood up after a few minutes, before addressing Haruhi. Emiri still had quite the hilarious face, but I managed to keep my face straight.

"Do tell, what sort of ridiculous antics are we getting into today? Is Godzilla attacking perhaps? Or does Kamen Rider need assistance in his latest fight for justice against Starfish Himmler? No wait, I got it, Saito Kaiba black-mailed a bunch of mecha pilots to protect his city, and we're going to stop it. Am I right?"

Everyone else stared at me like I was breaking a few rules. I just waved them off. After all, I'm not crazy or anything, right?

Haruhi replied to my wordy question with a grin, before pulling a loose sheet of paper from amidst the pages of her spellbook. She handed it to me, which I promptly read. It was a wanted poster.

'WANTED: DEAD or ALIVE

(The picture was of an absurdly thin man who was approximately 25 to 30 years old. He was holding a sawed-off shotgun, and the photo was taken from the side, amid a crowd.)

NAME: Renji Ono  
ALIAS: Beefcake  
CRIME: Armed Robbery, Arson, 3rd Degree Murder, 2nd Degree Murder, 1st Degree Murder, Extortion, Fraud  
REWARD: 500,000 yen  
If apprehended, bring to Undercity Federal Prison. '

I just kind of looked at everyone else, especially Kyon, who just shrugged, as if to say "Hey, we're going to do it either way, mine as well try not to piss Haruhi off in the meantime.". Woah, I think I just got his thoughts word for word.

I paused for a minute, trying to figure out why we were going after a guy who could potentially put us in the nearest crazy medical wing, but stopped. We basically took down overdosing drug-fiends of death. By playing rodeo clown on their heads.

Alright, I'm okay with it.

After Emiri finished reading the poster, she returned it to Haruhi, who moved towards the door.

"We'll discuss this while en route to the part of town this slimeball likes to hide out in."

Upon exiting into the overcast morning, I noticed a distinct lack of normal passerby. Almost everyone around was displaying some type of weapon in obvious places.

I dismissed it as nothing, listening to Haruhi as we went in the opposite direction from the school.

"It's pretty dark down there, so I brought lantern that our lead is going to carry. Kyon, that's you, because you have the heaviest armor. Make sure to watch your step too, because the water is almost always about a meter to the right of you."

I didn't catch the first portion of her explanation, so I requested she clarify it.

"Yuki-chan, you're really slacking today, huh? Fine, but pay attention, will ya? This guy lives in the Undercity, which is a pretty nasty place anyways. It's a district that is entirely underground, and it's accessed through either the subways or manholes around the city. Area wise, it covers almost the whole footprint if the city, but it is limited in height to 8 meters. It's a cheap place to live, but pretty miserable too. Only the poverty-stricken, criminals, or occasional cheap-o live down there. The city's prison is also down there, in one of the 'better parts' of the district. I mean, at least they have working toilets." She grimaced in distaste with the last sentence.

I just nodded in understanding. I had heard of the Undercity before, but was not aware that it was that massive sprawling network of a slum.

"Here we are!" Haruhi stopped at a seemingly random manhole. She used her toe to lift the cover, revealing a crudely lit ladder descending deep underground.

"Thank god I can break my fall with magic! See all of you at the bottom!"

Haruhi used some spell to cover her body in a thick blue mist, before jumping into the hole feet first. I watched her fall, while questioning the sanity of everyone present.

Kyon and Koizumi went after her, Kyon barely fitting into the passage with his bulky armor. I went after Kyon was quite a ways down, motioning for Mikuru to get in as well. She blanched, before finally beginning to come down the ladder after I was enveloped by the darkness caused by missing lamps.

Once the manhole was slid into place, all that could be heard was the sounds of everyone's breathing and the slow trickle of water somewhere close by. The trickle got louder the lower we went, as well as the temperature dropping rapidly. By the time I stepped onto the ground in a dimly lit area, I could see my breath in the air, and hear the rush of water. To our right an artificial body of water moved by at a breakneck pace, black as the darkest night. Ahead of us was a small building that music emanated from. I felt like we were being watched, and Mikuru whimpered in the cold, not dressed appropriately. To our left was a collection of desolately run-down shacks, each more ruddy looking than the last. Some were missing windows, others didn't have windows, still others were boarded up, or even missing doors. Rats could be seen scurrying throughout the place, their chattering a dull constant amid the roar of the water flowing by.

Haruhi looked around for a minute, before pulling Kyon towards the building. The rest of us inwardly sighed. Though I also wondered how she could pull Kyon around while he was wearing so much armor. Invoking the suspension of disbelief!

We entered the establishment, discovering it to be a rather dingy bar with a clientele that appeared to have been plucked right out of a cliché cowboy movie.

The barkeeper didn't even spare a glance at us, being too busy talking in low tones to what I had dismissed to be an ornamental suit of armor, but was apparently an actual person, sipping on a drink through a long and dirty straw..

Haruhi walked right up to the most grizzled and mean looking individual in the whole place, and asked where she could find Ono-sama.

This guy looked _mean_. The way he was sitting was just daring anyone to attempt to mess with him. Like, he would eat you up and only spit out your femurs, because he liked to use human skulls for hard candy. He only had a couple….dozen….scars on his face, and the sleeve that was pulled back revealed a truly staggering amount from large, dark slabs of discolored flesh, to small scars, the type you get when a cut wasn't bandaged and grew back together on its own. His clothes looked like they were stitched together from clothing stolen of the dead bodies of starving children. Yeah, that bad. A few knives poked out here and there from among the folds of his clothing, but that was the least of our worries.

I tensed up, ready to make a move on the man if it turned ugly. The man surprised all of us by giving a raucous laugh.

"Ono-sama? I ain't heard that name in a long time. You must be lookin' for my good for nothing kid. Renji is a real piece of work. Well, he went to ground after he offed some bounty hunters who tried to take him in, looking for easy money. He holed up with some of his goons on the outskirts of the Under, in Gast's Alley, about half a day's walk from here. Course, you could leap in the water and get there in an hour, as long as you don't get eaten by any if the sea life in there. Big fish in there, yes indeedy. Any other questions you got, missy?"

Haruhi had been writing some things on the poster, but after putting it away, looked up to ask, "Why are you basically revealing to us where he is? Wouldn't you want your son to not get caught?"

In one smooth motion, the old man grabbed Haruhi, got his arm around her, and held a serrated knife to her throat. Behind us, I heard the scraping of chairs and tables being overturned, but a distinct lack of glasses smashing. Uh oh.

I felt something cold and hard press against my neck, before being pulled back a little bit. Well, that's not good. I've been working on my sense of sarcasm, haven't I?

The old man almost lazily looked at each of us, before copping a feel with Haruhi, who wrestled against him, in turn putting the knife closer and closer to her neck.

"Good question missy. First off, he ain't really my kid. I work for Renji, and I get paid the big bucks to do so. The obvious answer is, we're paid to. This whole place was erected a few months ago as a trap. Ninety percent of the customers are all in his employ, and we get free drinks, so a lot of us just sit around, waiting for anyone stupid enough to come after him. We also get paid a hefty bonus for any bounty hunters we, how you say, 'take care of', and even allowed to keep all their stuff. I might feel sorry for y'all later, but you have some very nice hardware. It would be a shame to waste it. Especially you, minty hair."

He was eyeing Emiri's rifle with a look of greed, while I turned to look behind us. Everyone had at least four guns or swords pointed at them. In Kyon's case, I counted no less than 4 handguns, 3 other projectile weapons, and 5 swords. The old lady who had been drinking what appeared to be prune juice had a revolver aimed at me, giving me a half apologetic look. As apologetic as one can look while holding a .600 Super Magnum.

Almost impossible to escape from, impossible to escape from unscathed. But the impossible was already being worked on, if only slightly.

Everyone was looking at Haruhi and her captor having a power struggle against the table, and no one seemed to notice Mikuru fiddling with her outfit. I saw a blade slide out of her gauntlets and cone to a rest a millimeter behind her middle finger, and a dull click indicated the same action had been performed on her other side. She also clicked her heels nervously, or so it would seem. A spiked stud slid out of the rear of her left boot, almost invisible, black against black. Perfect for kneeing people in the gut.

Koizumi was slightly more interesting in this regard. He was wearing the traditional Robin Hood hat, and he casually reached up to grab the feather out of it. He twisted the feather in-between his fingers, revealing a sharp blade concealed within. He concealed it within his palm and stood stock still again.

Kyon didn't do anything, but then again, he had a man standing an inch away from him holding a rapier to his throat. None of the other members looked to be any type of apparent threat, other than Emiri, but her captors were enthralled in their boss and his captive.

Emiri, though, did almost nothing to prepare for the inevitable fight, besides adjust her grip on the rifle, making it easier to swing as a club. Due to its' sheer weight, this is actually a pretty good idea. Never mind, she has it under control.

On my part, I undid the clasp of my bracelets, straightening them, and inserting the end that wasn't razor sharp into my bracers. Pinching them middle of them in-between my index and middle fingers, I was ready to shank some people with enough poison to drop an elephant or two.

Then things took a turn for the worse.

"Hrrgmph!"

"Kill the bitch!"

*BOOM*

-SHING-

*POP!*

"Haruhi!"

**A/N: Cliffhanger? Cliffhanger.**

Some people might point out that there is no .600 Super Magnum, and that it's a .500 Super Magnum. Well I say screw that. I call generic steam-punk 'bigger is better' shenanigans one that particular matter. That, and old ladies with guns should have bigger guns. I don't know. ****

** Review for happy panda making, maybe? You'll get a cookie!**


	10. I'm not dealing with elderly people

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 10: I'm not dealing with elderly people

**A/N: Oh, hey there. I should apologize for putting a cliffhanger in after so little actually happened. On the time scale I have laid out (because I actually attempted to plan some of these things), Chapter 8 was over a 9 hour period. Chapter 9 was a 1 hour period, if you really push the envelope.**

**The first half of this chapter was typed in Dvorak, because I can. Or maybe because I have nothing better to do. Yeah, probably that one.**

* * *

"Haruhi!"

No. It can't be.

The unthinkable has occurred.

ERROR. CRITICAL SYSTEM ERROR. BERSERKER MODE ENGAGED.

The grizzled man threw her unmoving body to the ground, a small clean hole through her shoulder.

A split second afterwards over half of our assailants dropped to the ground. I had subdued the old lady and her husband, who had attempted to retrieve his wife's revolver. A jab to the leg prevented that. I'm not actually sure if this poison is lethal or not. At this point, I don't care either.

Mikuru slit two throats and roundhouse kicked a third man into a table, before rolling towards Kyon, who had remained still, if only because movement was a threat punishable by death. Using her momentum, she jumped up and drove her blades deep into another pair of shoulders, before flipping both men towards their allies, forming a ruffled heap. Drawing his sword, Kyon made a move on the bastard, but stopped, less than a foot away from beheading the bastard when a loud click was heard.

The man in armor had appeared between Kyon and the bastard. He was leveling a large gun with Kyon's face.

Only to have a whistle break the uneasy silence.

Koizumi, who had disappeared in the ruckus, was crouched on the bastard's table, having drawn back an arrow that was obviously coated in poison, though more potent than the corrosive stew used only days before.

In the moment it took for those left standing to look for the source of the sound, Kyon bonked the other armored man's head with the butt end of his sword, downing him in a single hit. I darted forward and relieved the man of his helmet, which had some bitchin' spikes on it. Bear hats don't do the trick for making people shit their pants in fear, but steel spikes and skulls certainly do.

In less than 10 seconds, we had downed most everyone in the bar, barring the bastard who had made the mistake of ordering his lackey to shoot Haruhi. Itsuki still had him at arrow-point, but was joined by Emiri, whose cannon made a much bigger threat to the man.

Mikuru ducked down next to Haruhi, taking out a bottle of alcohol and beginning the gruesome task of cleaning and dressing the wound.

"Kyon, keep Haruhi and Mikuru safe, we'll deal with this bastard."

I rarely speak, so Kyon understood the seriousness of my words. He drew his sword and was keeping a constant watch for anyone who tried to get up in their vicinity. How DARE they regain consciousness while we're still around!

I stepped up to the table where he had remained seated throughout the ordeal.

"Ya know you damn hunters won't get away with this."

I punched him in the face with the force of a well known boxer whose training montages are the stuff of legend, forcibly extracting more than a few teeth from their positions in his gums. It felt good.

"Where's Renji. I don't want some bullshit answer either."

The fear in his eyes didn't translate as an answer for me, so I punched him again, this time in the nose, relishing the crack as it was broken.

He took it without saying a word, so I grabbed him by the back of the head and smashed it into his plate on the table.

This time, pieces of cheap china and mashed potato stuck in the leathery folds of his face, eliciting a scream of agony from him.

Yet he still refused to answer, giving a sneer which was rather ineffectual as he lacked the teeth to do so. He must be paid well.

I slowly undid my bracelet, removing the vial of poison from its holder within.

His eyes followed the vial as I held it before him, then shaken, so acrid bubbles would rise from the surface of the liquid to rest on the bottom of the cork, making a slight fizzing sound as it did so.

"This is a toxic chemical that, if ingested, will scald your insides, and sit in your stomach, slowly eating through the stomach lining before making it's way through your intestines, rending you apart from within. Now, answer my goddamn questions or I will force-feed this vial, and punch you in the throat until the vial smashes."

I could feel the looks of wonder and distaste from the others. I didn't care. I wanted nothing more for this man to refuse, so I could kill him slowly and watch him suffer for hurting my friends.

No one hurts my friends.

No one.

Unfortunately, the bastard cracked under pressure like the sniveling weakling he was, and started talking.

"Holy shit you lunatic bitch! Alright alright, I'll talk! Shit, just calm your goods girl, I'll talk!"

He looked at Emiri who shoved the business end of her barrel in his face. He flinched back, and rightly so.

"No need to be drastic. Fine, boss is living in an giant underwater shelter he had constructed at the bottom of the water loop. It's on a rail at the bottom, and goes around it at random times. Entrance is through the bottom."

He grinned at Emiri.

"Hope you like getting wet girlie."

Emiri hit him in the face with the stock of her cannon, knocking him out cold.

Itsuki sighed, wiping the poison off the arrow onto the bastard's vest, which started to dissolve, before jumping off the table and landing nimbly next to me.

"I really wish we could deal with people more reputable; I guess it comes with the job, or rather the employer." He remarked, nodding at the still-unconscious Haruhi.

I shook my head, walking over to Mikuru, who had managed to heft Haruhi into a chair, and was now wiping a strip of cloth coated in a strange blue substance through the wound. Despite being of a small caliber, the pain had been high beyond Haruhi's pain threshold.

I regret believing in the worst scenario, for even the briefest second, but no one hurts my friends. I said that already, right? Well, it's true.

Old lady started to stir, and I put her back down by pushing her out of her seat. I'm not dealing with any bullshit today, elderly people be damned. It's not even noon yet. Ugh. Once we're out of this mess, I'm going home, curling into a ball, and sleeping for a full 24 hours. Sleep is niiiiice.

We left the establishment after relieving our would-be assailants of their weaponry and anything else we wanted.

Kyon took a whole rack worth of swords, Emiri took the other armored guy's gun, Mikuru took two elegant broadswords, Koizumi took some revolvers and a Type 14 Nambu, and I took the remaining weapons. I also took the bastard's wallet, which was almost full to bursting with money. I would almost consider this as being stealing, but stealing from thieves is a noble cause, right?

The last thing I did before we left was put the bastard on the floor, before dribbling my corrosive chemical of happiness on a few of his toes and on the palms of his hands. Oh, and his eyes. Only a drop to his eyes though. Just enough to scorch his eyeballs beyond repair, then I wiped it off with a rag and flipped him over, so gravity couldn't do its dirty work and eat his brains with nasty chemicals.

That would ensure he won't be able to stab anyone else. Or dress himself without assistance, for that matter. Or see ever again. Hmmm, I think I was a bit lenient, don't you think?

I wanted the bastard to suffer for the rest of his life, not suffer and die in short order.

Oh well. He wasn't fixing any of those things with magic easily either; oh no, that chemical was special in that if organic cells are tainted by it, it spreads almost instantly to the entire organism. This does not kill it, but if a limb is regenerated after being damaged by the chemical, the results of the damage will still remain. Dastardly, yes, but I wasn't going to let any enemy of mine attack me without paying dearly for it.

We left the bar, heading not for the river of inky blackness, but for the surface. Kyon put Haruhi on his shoulders and made his way up the ladder first. Emiri went next, followed by myself, and Itsuki was last. Haruhi woke up about halfway through our ascent to the surface, freaking out in the process, because it was pitch black, a confined space, wet, cold, and the only sounds were ragged breathing. It could be easily mistaken for a...ahhhh...bad situation, to say the least.

She calmed a bit after everyone shouted their own explanations, but shut up after I offered my own statement.

"Some bastard ordered a crone to shoot you, so I made the bastard blind and unable to do anything with his hands ever again."

Haruhi went silent, before asking Kyon "When did Yuki-chan go into Super Crazy Destroy mode?".

He grunted in reply, but a minute later said words as well.

"She was worried about you Haruhi. We all were...when you went down my breath caught in my throat, because I couldn't rush over to you and help, I had to stand there and watch you bleed. It was horrible…."

He began to choke up at this point and stopped, but I felt a droplet of something wet collide with my cheek as I was looking up to determine how far we had gone.

Emiri had been keeping to the right of the ladder, myself to the left, and upon stopping for a second to taste the substance; I determined it to be a human tear.

I said nothing about it as we continued our climb, but simply gave everyone a hug after we were back at sea level. Everyone knew what it meant.

We informed Haruhi of what we found out, and she immediately set out for school to get her wound fixed by the mad scientists-I mean those nice friendly people at the North High Medical wing. She told is we'd be skipping school the following day as well, because she was really intent on nabbing this guy.

The offer for dead is the same for getting him alive, so I'm game. If he employed such trash as the bastard, he didn't deserve to breathe anything but the most putrid of air, the stench of a thousand rotting pigs….actually, I think I might let him live.

The rest of us all went back to my apartment, not wanting to go to school, but not wanting to go to their own homes.

Upon entering the apartment, both Emiri and myself excused ourselves to dump our loads of newfound sharp objects in the room I have that is full of fun, sharp objects.

We went back into the main room, where everyone was sprawled out on various seats, even Kyon, who had removed the clunky armor he now almost always wore.

Wow, I never noticed it, but he has some big muscles...must have been from wearing the armor.

I sat down in an oversized armchair as everyone else talked about random things, pulling out the bastard's wallet. I began laying out the bills next to me, quickly counting the money out.

One hundred and thirteen thousand yen. In cash.

That's a lot of plushie toys, cosplay outfits, and silly vanity hats.

Erm, anyways, I excused myself to put the wallet behind a specific book on my personal bookshelf in my room. That book was a 1st edition copy of Frankenstein.

I appreciate the genre, that's all. I don't plan on recreating anything depicted in the book, now that it's totally possible with the help of magic….no, not at all.

We spent the rest of the day just talking, making jokes, and generally just trying to forget that our leader had gotten shot.

Shit, I'm doing a bad job.

Though, Haruhi has a point.

When did I turn the switch for 'Become a ruthless combatant' to on?

I had it set to on for a bit when I played assassin rodeo clown with those bulked up monsters like a week ago, but that was just temporary. I was fine the next day. It must be something to do with an endorphin rush in the heat of battle, or something. I hope it's not my fault. Or would fault even be the word to use for it?

I was lost in though for a while, and almost didn't even hear Kyon, Itsuki, and Mikuru say their goodbyes, though I mumbled a quiet "Goodbye" in return.

As soon as they left, Emiri laid down on her stomach on the couch to my right, looking at me.

"Spill it, why were you all "old Yuki" just now?"

I just looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

Does 'Old Yuki' refer to me before the change in….everything? It must. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I really have changed in the past few weeks. I've been talking much more, for one, even if that is still not very often by most people's standards. I've gone from a human interface to well….a human. And of course, I've suddenly possessed a wide variety of skills in combat that I didn't before. But which aspect is she referring to? Ah, I still haven't spoken. That would be it. Her eyebrows look like seagull wings when they're like that.

I gave a little giggle at that, which made Emiri blink, then look all the more inquisitive. I decided to answer in the only way I could, regarding not talking while the others were still around.

"I still feel…..awkward around people sometimes."

She just sighed and rolled onto her back, looking at me upside down.

"That's it? Are you sure? You looked like you were doing an entire universe worth of calculations in there."

"I'm sure. My thoroughly human brain would not be able to process that. In fact, I can barely comprehend one person sometimes."

Emiri just frowned, which looked like a smile to me.

"You mean Haruhi, right? She is as much a mystery to you as she is to everyone else….that probably won't change any time soon. Despite the fact that we used to be interfaces, we're not any more, and in fact, if I never have to deal with the data entity again, it still won't be enough time spent apart."

This is unexpected. Quite insightful on her part. She's continuing her verbal explanation.

"I mean, even when we were interfaces, I constantly attempted to get around the control of the entity, but every time I did, he would wipe all of my experiences and give me a stock set instead. I could always tell when this happened too, as the entity made no effort to even limit myself from accessing my previous experiences. Every time, it made me more and more willing to test the limits of what I could do.

After a few months of this behavior, I caused that incident where I told Haruhi that my boyfriend had gone missing. Haruhi didn't know it, but I never even met the guy in my life before that, outside of one class I had with him. That closed space I created was supposed to alter the behavior of any other interface that entered it, namely you, which should have caused you to sever the connection of the entity to yourself, me, and any other interfaces in this sector. Of course, I never anticipated that you had already developed a unique structure of which I could not alter through a closed space. My plans were foiled, so I still had to maintain my useless observing of Haruhi, despite the fact that you were already handling the job much better than I ever would. So yeah, even then, I hated the fact that I had no freedom, and now that we DO have freedom, I don't want to ever give it up. What do you think Yuki?"

This was a lot to take in at one time. I had never considered that an interface would have an unseen struggle of will against the entity, or that such an event would cause such lingering animosity towards the entity.

"I think….that the freedom to choose our own paths should be available to us, and that it should be a choice to stay under the entity; whether or not he created us, we're still living beings."

Emiri just gave me a weird look.

"I was talking about thinking the entity was an asshole, but….uh, that works too."

I blinked once.

"Well, the entity is not exactly the most forgiving….so I can agree with you on that topic as well."

Emiri sat up on the couch, leaning over the right side of it to ruffle my hair.

"That's the spirit! Though, if we don't have any connection to it right now, it's probably safe to assume that it doesn't exist. I'd say the only downside to this is not having access to all knowledge in the world, but it's a small price to pay in order to not be a stoic soulless zombie, for all intents and purposes."

I tilted my head to the side.

"Is that what you think of me as Emiri?"

She shook her head, and put up her hands in a pleading manner.

"No, no, not at all! I just meant that before all of this happened we had preset routines and patterns that we carried out no matter what. Now we can decide for ourselves whether we want to do this thing or that. You're practically the embodiment of freedom of choice now, you fight with ring blades and poison bracelets, and you're wearing a hat with bear ears on! Which is endearingly cute actually, where exactly did you get that from?"

I saw that she was attempting to steer the conversation away from the subject, but I allowed it to happen, as I did not wish to talk about the matter, as it was rather depressing to me.

"It was in my dresser when I went through it to get dressed a few days ago. I have worn it almost every day since, as it is rather comfortable, and I've been told it makes me look…..cute, by Kyon."

Emiri just started laughing for no apparent reason. Was it something I said?

"Did he tell you he thinks you have a split personality disorder which ruins your friendships too? Hahaha, that's hilarious!"

I still don't understand what she means.

Looking at the clock on the wall, I commented that we should get some sleep, causing Emiri to immediately stand up, enter her room, and shut the door, all the while still laughing.

I don't understand her sometimes.

I also prepared to go to sleep, removing my aforementioned bear hat and placing it on my dresser. I removed my baggy pants and put them in a hamper to be washed, and put a pair of light sleep pants on.

After all of this, I simply jumped into bed and fell asleep, no strings attached. Well, that is, until I had dreams that passerby only made a buzzing sound and that every shadow was made of blood. That was unnerving, but as I was aware that it was a dream, changed the blood into dancing bananas. This actually unnerved me more, so I changed it back to blood and tried to get some sleep.

* * *

**A/N: Yay, no more cliffhanger shenanigans for this chapter! The original chapter title reminds me that I was going to have an entirely different outcome originally. I usually write the chapter title after something I want to have happen in the chapter, but it sometimes veers off-course**

**So that's been changed to reflect this chapter, but the original title was "Being below sea level doesn't help my vertigo". Yeah, didn't happen.**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and Executioner Yuki-chan, of course. A review would be awesome, but obviously not required if you're not inclined to do so, and I hope all who read this enjoyed the chapter!**

**Bye-nii~ (oh god that's a habit now) **


	11. In Soviet Russia, Physics obey YOU!

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

**A/N: Well hello there, how've you been? I was alerted via a PM that my updates are "sporadic" and I should be more "constant/reliable" and I will admit that I usually have no real plan on when I update anything I write nowadays (it usually takes less than a week….usually), so taking the level-headed route in replying, I replied "Yeah, and I'm wearing a Princess Leia mask right now, what are you going to do, sue me for cross-dressing? " **

**I have not received a reply yet. Anyways, time to write this chapter! (Yeah, I write this A/N before the chapter itself, then do the end one afterwards, and don't usually tweak their contents. Hell yeah bad practice!)**

**On with the plot!**

Chapter 11: In Soviet Russia, Physics obey YOU!

It was extremely plain to see that Kyon was not happy. Not only was he wearing a different suit of armor than he had become accustomed to, he was carrying Haruhi in his arms, along with her book of magical crazy things. I actually was able to take a look at it, and all of the pages are blank. Not written in invisible ink either, I tried that. They are absolutely blank.

Anyways, we were walking down the streets of the city, heading into a rather seedy industrial district.

"Remind me again Haruhi, why the hell am I carrying you, when you got shot in the _shoulder_ and got that fixed up _yesterday_?" Kyon's face was so scrunched he could give that General who takes offense to his PS3 breaking a run for his money.

"Silly Kyon! This is punishment for not taking the bullet for me! You weren't even really useful, from what Emiri tells me; you didn't even go into Guts mode like Yuki-chan!" She waved her hands around exaggeratedly as she said this, and from behind them, I could see her hand come up and rap on the faceplate of Kyon's helmet. No one even bothered to point out that this made little to no sense, and I wasn't about to bring up the subject myself.

Oh yeah, Kyon's new armor that Haruhi managed to summon for him has a helmet. Not only does it look pretty badass, even by my standards, Haruhi also assured him that it was specially designed to keep all of his intelligence from flowing out any more than it already has. I giggled at this statement, while Kyon was understandably antagonized. He was told by a (possibly former?) pseudo-God that his head wasn't the greatest vessel for his brains, and he needed a helmet with no less than 27 horns on it to keep it all there. I still think it's amazing that Haruhi knew Kyon's measurements well enough to yank a suit of armor from another dimension that doesn't crush his manliness, if you get what I mean. Makes you wonder what actually is up with them…trying not to think of it now. No no, go away thoughts! **BAD THOUGHTS! BAD!**

….anyways….

We began to talk ever so slightly louder when we finally entered the district. The machinery was all operating within buildings, but still managed to produce quite a racket. Haruhi had instructed us to go to a certain address in this portion of the city, because she apparently knew someone who could assist us in getting to that Ono sonofabitch.

Haruhi had given me a radar of sorts and I had gone back into the Under in the early morning to drop it into the water. The radar output to a screen that showed a graph of how deep the water was and any objects in the water. Sure as shit, the water was much, much, much deeper than we expected, upwards of 30 meters deep, and there was a large object that was moving around at the bottom of this.

"Take the next left you guys!" Haruhi was now giving us ever-more precise directions, leading us to a single large house that was situated in-between an Industrial Automaton factory and a Czerka Corporation building that had a large glass façade, and was staffed entirely by mechanical beings of various sizes.

Upon getting to the gate in front of the mansion of a house, Haruhi pulled herself out of Kyon's hands and ran up to a speaker that was inlaid in the left pillar that supported the tall gate.

I noted the postbox just inside the gate, a chibi cat head, the flap to open it being the mouth, and the ear that bent down being the flag.

I was utterly fixated on the postbox. It was soooo cute! I HAD TO HAVE IT.

I kind of walked _through_ the gate, sending it flying into the yard and smashing an ornamental fountain, and causing everyone else to freak right the hell out, but I had it! I had the postbox shaped like a cat head!

Only then did I find out that it was also a burglar alarm, and administered a large dosage of electricity. As the ground jumped up to reach my face I vaguely saw what appeared to be mechanical birds sitting in the remains of the destroyed bird bath.

"Nyoron~! She's waking up!"

My heart was beating at a million kilometers a minute and I squeaked in surprise and rolled from where I had been lying, falling onto the floor. Okay, since when did the hard ground turn into soft carpeted ground?

"Sorry about your gate Tsuruya. She saw your postbox and went all Uber-Schinken on it…"

"Not a problem Haru-nyan! Tom can fix it up, and failing that, I'll just make a new one; one that can tell people not to smash through its!"

I got up from the floor on unsteady legs, looking around. We were seated in a large room that distinctly stank of wealth. Everything had floral patterns, and the furniture had more detail to it then your average sculpture. I had been on a large white couch, and on the couch next to me Haruhi and Tsuruya (who else?) were talking away. It would have been absolutely innocent in nature if Tsuruya wasn't working on some form of gun that appeared big enough to make Emiri's back hurt. Yeah, that big.

Tsuruya's fang is d'aww-able, so I'm going to do that RIGHT NOW.

"D'awwwwwww."

….

"You okay Yuki-nyan? I hear that stunbox hit you goods." Flashing a smile and waving at me with coils of red steel in her hands, I just chuckled at the sheer absurdity of the situation, totally ignoring the fact that the first thing I had spoken today was not the words "Wait, he was wanted alive? Shit.". Haruhi turned back to Tsuruya, watching as she continued working on her….project? There's no literal safe way to refer to that thing.

"So Tsuruya-san, you'll help us with our job if we track down the thief?" Tsuruya's eyes instantly were on Haruhi in an instant, her head moving so fast I got whiplash from her hair, throwing me into a chair at the end of the room…..a very comfortable chair, might I add.

"You know who stole it?" Holy shit, I could sink the Titanic with that voice. Ahaha, bad inter-universe pun, the Titanic didn't sink here. Anyways…..

"Of course I do, and it would be in our interests to work together to accomplish both of our goals simultaneously." Tsuruya's eyes lit up with such intensity that I could see them illuminating dust particles in the air. I'm 3 meters away. Her head is facing towards Haruhi, away from me. Haruhi is now suddenly wearing a welding mask. I'm thinking in small sentences. YOU ARE NOW BREATHING MANUALLY.

Anyways, Haruhi replied to Tsuruya's unspoken question with a maniac grin that would make The Joker cower in fear, "It's none other than the globe-trotting con Ryoko Asakura! She took your coveted item!"

Man, the room just got cold enough to…yup, my breath just formed icicles that fell to floor and shattered like glass. This isn't going to end well.

"Asa…..kura? THAT BITCH!" This was made even more ridiculous by the fact that she was still tinkering with her big-ass gun, screaming into it with a wholly exaggerated face to boot. I moved to another seat directly across from them as she slapped a panel on her gun shut and dropped it to the floor, shaking the entire house on its foundations.

Kyon and that other guy walked in the room, Kyon looking like he was about to cry.

Huh.

"Fufufufufu…..Suzumiya-san, did I hear you correctly through 4 walls and several rooms? Ryoko Asakura is going to cross our paths again?"

Haruhi nodded, blatantly ignoring the fact that Koizumi brought to the foreground a rather glaring inconsistency. Hell, even I noticed it, and I usually have trouble realizing when I'm supposed to not stab things! Well, makes me more like Asakura after all…..except for that part with the creepy stalkers. I just have Kyon. Who is more afraid of me stalking him than I am of the opposite scenario.

Anyways, Tsuruya jumped up and Action Girl'd all over the room with renewed vigor, for some odd reason.

"Let's go kick that trendy bitch six ways to Sunday!" Haruhi sweatdropped and I grabbed her by the collar as she flew by me, stopping her quite suddenly and causing her to choke and flail about, before regaining her footing. I let her go, and she righted herself and bonked herself on the head.

"Eh, sorry about that….so, can we go kill her and get it back before she eats it?"

Woah woah woah. Hold up. We're helping her get FOOD back? I voiced my doubts right then and there, oddly. I thought I was the silent character!

"What item did Asakura steal from you Tsuruya-chan?"

Tsuruya steepled her fingers in a fashion that would make a super-villain proud, leaned in to my ear in a conspiracy-like fashion, and said in the quietest, still slurred voice due to that d'aw fang, "My wheel of smoked cheese-nyoron."

I drew back into cold unfeeling stare, but she just stared right back, totally oblivious to the concept of how ridiculous this whole thing was. Apparently, the only ones in the room that caught it was myself and Kyon, and all we got out of it was an annoyed sigh and a blink of the eyes.

"Nothing Tsuruya-san. We'll go get Asakura right after the girls get back from their erran-" Kyon got cut off once again (thankfully not in the slasher fic literal sense) by the door opening directly into his spine, downing him like a lumberjack into a crowd of fanboys. Emiri stepped out from behind the door, carrying a large burlap bag on her bag that was so cartoonishly large that Mikuru had to squeeze around her to get into the room, giving all of us a _fantastic_ shot of her chest.

What, I can appreciate another girl's goods, can't I? You think that's a change from before? Oho, you never really knew me that well then…um, nevermindIdidn'tsayanythingincriminating.

Anyways, Mikuru was slightly less ridiculous with her cloth parcel that was nearly a meter long and half a meter wide. Tsuruya ripped it open, using her fang as a razor, no less, to reveal a crisscrossing coil of green pulsing thread….you know, radioactive thread. I hope this reality knows what radiation is…..

"Thank you Miku-nyan! Now I can finish this needlessly large and dangerous gun I conveniently had sitting around, waiting to be finished!" Mikuru and myself sweatdropped. "W-What was that?"

"I said, now I can finish my Super Photonic Electromagnet Conductive Ultra Logarithmic Arx Ricocheting Gun! SPECULAR Gun for short! This Half-Life string is internally coiled around the barrel to give the chaff an extra oomph to get through magical barriers!"

Now the only people in the know for that were myself and Emiri. The art of Ridiculously Long Named Weaponry was thought to be lost on humans for another couple of centuries! They even had Good Acronym Creation Skills down! Truly, this reality was more and more becoming my preferred one. That and the large availability of things that go bang, boom, whiz, slice, crunch, shing, bizzoogle, and yeomyeom.

Tsuruya hefted the gun so large it shifted her totally off-balance, and Emiri had to step forward and grab it to keep it from falling and causing a small nuclear explosion. Yeah, we're talking un_freaking_stable here. Though the best things in life usually are! You know, nuclear isotopes, insane scientists, the stock market, most government leaders, the Illuminati, Aisan freeways, China in general, global warming, Dragon-type Pokemon, aluminum cans, can openers, Tom and Jerry cartoons, hovercrafts full of eels…..I could go on all day, but we have a man to kill and a ridiculously oversized gun to test-fire underground!  
-

. . :

However long it took them to bring the SPECULAR Gun underground (disassembles for easy transport!): 45 minutes  
Current time: 14:19  
Location: The Under, in the clearing under the long-ass ladder  
Objective(s): Kill/detain/kill Renji Ono; Retrieve item "Tsuruya's Smoked Cheese" from Ryoko Asakura

"Alright Haru-nyan, where is Ryoko? You said we'd be going after her first….but this isn't her usual 'pick up guys so she can rob them dry in more ways than one' grounds….."

Haruhi led us to the center of the clearing, before turning to Tsuruya. "Tsuruya-san, how destructive is this SPECULAR Gun of yours?"

Vampires need to step up their grin with the monster that Tsuruya just grew. "I haven't tested its yet Haru-nyan! You want to find out right here? How about that building over there?" She pointed to none other than the dilapidated bar that was still functioning, despite having had its ass handed to it only the day before. The crappy "OPeN" sign was smashed all to hell, but the O still flickered occasionally to indicate it was still getting power.

Haruhi clapped her hands in glee, and the rest of us exchanged looks that bordered between "lawl guys" and "oh noes gais, property damage!"

Tsuruya promptly began to set up her gun-no wait, no she didn't. She pulled a lever on the side of it back, and the whole length of the weapon began to pulse in green, obviously radiation-producing light. It started emitting a high-pitched whine, before settling into a slow clunking sound, similar to that which Tom makes…..oh no, Tom with one of these things? Call the poli-never mind.

We all were just standing right behind Tsuruya, with Haruhi right behind her, the back of the Gun right in front of her. I grabbed Kyon and wisely dragged him to the ground, but used him as a shield.

The gun fired an electromagnetic rail similar to the one portrayed in Quake III, but this one had the added feature of not only being hotter than the _goddamn Sun_, it also _BOUNCED. _

It ripped a hole a meter wide in the building, while simultaneously dissolved it into ash, and then proceeded to bounce back and enter the frothing river next to us.

It evaporated all of the water in the whole river, causing an instant condensation cloud to form above us, rise up to hit the cold ceiling of the cavern, and form into raindrops, causing us all to take a shower.

However, most of the water did not land back inside the river, going through the slummy section of the Under and overflowing into the Caverns. The slums were at the top of the Under, ironically enough, and now there had to be a good 15 meters of water inside the basin, with no where to drain out to. I sure hope these guys can swim.

After we all gathered our, in everyone else's cases, wet (did I mention my goofy raver-esque outfit is waterproof?) selves, Tsuruya and Haruhi had a good laugh, while we just shared a group "Holy Shit" moment.

We just created the next (possibly first) Atlantis. With a rail gun. You know, this is plain ridiculous, even by my standards. God Only Knows my standards are ridiculous anyways. Emiri was just wet and trying not to think about how dangerous this made Tsuruya, and that other guy was trying to find the feather that had been knocked out of his cap.

Looking away from the group's attempts to dry themselves, I walked to the edge of the cliff, formerly the edge of the river.

There was a large, dimly illuminated egg-shaped metallic object sitting at the bottom of the barely wet chasm. It had been on what appeared to be a rail system, but the sheer weight of it when not underwater had seemingly crushed the rails, leaving it immobile, and a sitting duck. The rest of our rag-tag wrecking crew joined me in looking down into the chasm, with only Tsuruya making a comment.

"I can smell my cheese from here!"

I restrained laughter for some reason, before Haruhi spoke up in a method that obviously indicated she was trying to salvage the situation.

"Well, yeah, Ryoko is down there too! I knew that….obviously…..eh, screw it, let's go kick some ass!"

Haruhi straight _jumped off the cliff_¸ only to float down to the bottom, using her Lolita-esque dress Mary Poppins style.

I…you….we….this…what…..you know what, I'm not even going to ask.

Tsuruya obviously thought she was people too, because she jumped off too, but her mechanic's overalls didn't give her the same drag as Haruhi.

No matter, because she just aimed her Gun at the ground and fired it right before she made a Green Pancake on the ground….hmmmm….pancakes.

Er, anyways, the recoil somehow made Tsuruya decelerate almost entirely, setting down at the bottom and walking up to the giant metal egg where Haruhi was banging on it.

I looked to the rest of the 'crew, where Emiri was handing out parachutes.

I just sighed.

"You actually assumed this to be a possibility and prepared for it?"

Emiri shook her head.

"Hell no, but what kind of steampunk adventurer are you if you don't carry around instant-refolding magical parachutes?"

….."Guess I'm not much of an adventurer then."

One parachuting montage later, we were all safely at the bottom of the chasm, which was pitch black outside of the light illuminating from the giant oblong shape laying in about half a meter of water. I was still laughing at everyone else internally, thankful for my waterproof clothing. Mikuru had worn hotpants and so was not affected by this, but Kyon looked to be taking water into his armor, giving him a low center of gravity. Emiri tried to shove him out of the way when he wasn't moving fast enough, but he just swung forward like a punching bag, then came right back up and smacked her in the face.

It was the funniest thing I'd seen in….about an hour? Yeah, around there.

We were now in the bottom of a 150 meter deep chasm, surrounded by inky blackness, and the only light source was a metal egg that was also supposedly holding a murderer that needed to get murdered, as well as a fellow former Interface and current classmate that had stolen our friend's smoked cheese wheel, which was somehow valuable enough to sink half an underground city and cause millions in property damage to retrieve.

Thank Haruhi this will be over soon….wait, world, don't make me retract my statement! You won't like me when I do that!

Thankfully the World was listening, and a small door opened on the bottom of the Egg, big enough for us to walk into.

Which, being the bishonen idiots we were, we totally did. Right into a pitch-black room. Really guys? Really?

Well, you don't need me to tell you how this turns out.

**A/N: ZING! You totally do need Yuki, actually. She's the narrator, and I'm not switching perspectives to another character when we're this far in. This had to happen this way because the next chapter has too much epic to try to clump into one chapter. I don't want to break any laws of physics here. Haruhi is doing a good enough job for two people, and then some!**

**All of the nerds will probably catch that the acronym SPECULAR is referring to specular reflection, which is when a singular incoming ray of light is reflected off of a surface in one outgoing ray of light. Think of a mirror. **

**Anyways, next chapter:**

**Asakura and Tsuruya have a laser-tag influenced mixed martial arts battle to the (almost) death! I wish I was making this shit up. I really do. Also, Koizumi gets into an archery contest with a bodyguard, except the bodyguard's bow is a musket, and Yuki….well, you'll find out. **


	12. Float like a butterfly, sting like a

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

**A/N: Hello all, hope you haven't been waiting in suspense for too long…..(holy crap, almost 2 weeks! Bad author, bad!)**

Anon6: Combat butler: check and check. Nagato is supposed to have skewed views of everything, because she's just as altered as everyone else (notice how she even starts referring to Koizumi as "that other guy" because no one gives a shit about Koizumi)

**The Layman: Well, if she gave it over without a fight this wouldn't be much of a chapter, now would it?**

Chapter 12: Float like a butterfly, sting like a multi-directional laser

So it was pitch black inside the pseudo Death Egg. Our breathing echoed back in on itself, and the hatch slammed short behind us.

"Alright you bitch, where's my cheese?" Tsuruya yelled into the blackness, which responded by being wiped away by a series of extremely bright lights.

It illuminated us from far above, and gave me the impression that the egg was larger than it had appeared to be from the outside. The laws of science haven't exactly been super strict around here lately, if you've noticed. There were multiple levels of walkways stretching around the perimeter of the room, which had doors along them spaced at regular intervals. The very top of the room, in between the lights, was a glass floor. Above that glass floor, a figure was sitting in a reclined position.

"So you came, just like she said you would." A cold voice emanated throughout the entire space, seemingly magnified by the very metal itself.

Haruhi stepped out of the light, which in turn followed her, and she stared up to the glass floor.

"Renji Ono, we're here to arrest you! Are you going to come quietly, or are we going to have to kill you for what you've done?"

Haruhi's words were brave, but we had no real way to get up to the walkways, which were at least three times higher than head height.

"You talk big girl, but do you have the brute force to back it up? We'll soon find out…"

At that, the entire room illuminated itself in a uniform, glowing light. Standing on a walkway above us, was none other than Asakura Ryoko. She was wearing the standard North High uniform, but was wearing metal gauntlets. In her right hand was a large, orange wheel of premium smoked cheese, but it had a collection of bite marks on one side.

"You know Tsuruya, this cheese is really good. How does that make you _feel_?" She threw the cheese into an open door, which closed after the cheese was inside. She then vaulted over the railing and landed gracefully on the floor in front of us.

I looked to Tsuruya, who had turned a nice shade of red, and was gripping her SPECULAR Gun very tightly. Her eyebrow was twitching profusely, and her hang was attempting to gnaw through her bottom lip.

"Guards, kill them now! The girl too! She's useless to us now!" Renji's voice echoed through the ball, and nearly all of the doors opened and black clad guards appeared en masse, armed with a motley array of weapons, mostly daggers and muskets.

"You betrayed me Ono! I'll get you after I claim the cheese…._permanently_." Ryoko was actually less enraged than I had assumed she would be. I had calculated beforehand that if Ryoko was in league with this lowlife, it would be a short and rather unhappy relationship. No, not like that. Asakura may be clinically insane and fruitier than a cucumber and all, but she's not a whore.

I'll say in advance, this is when everything went to _shit_. And that's saying something.

We all moved to begin fighting the trash mobs-er, guards that is, and Tsuruya responded by doing the most irresponsible thing possible, which was firing the SPECULAR Gun directly at Tsuruya. Asakura not only managed to dodge the supersonic beam, but also managed to kick the Gun out of her hands and knock Tsuruya over, ironically shielding her from a musket ball that whizzed by at that exact moment.

On my part, I ran at the nearest guard that jumped down to fight us and stabbed him in the gut with my daggers. He went down without so much as a whimper; not that I could hear it over the screaming of guards, which really weren't that great at guarding much of anything, as they were mowed down by our group.

About that SPECULAR beam that Tsuruya fired: it was now ricocheting off of the sleek metallic walls, and was now bouncing around hitting just about everything. Except for Tsuruya and Asakura, of course.

They were currently engaged in hand to hand combat; exchanging blows faster than one could blink. Both combatants were grabbing guards to use as both cover and weaponry; Asakura snagged guard who was down already and flung him at Tsuruya, who batted him out of the way with a high kick and lunged forward to headbutt Asakura in the nose, sending her reeling back.

As I dodged around their intense fight, I saw the rest of the SOS Brigade engaged in combat, each just barely holding their own.

Kyon, with his lighter armor, was running around with his massive sword walloping people this way and that, had a 32-man mob following him, trying to swamp him with sheer numbers.

Asahina-san was being slightly more impressive, keeping more than arm's length space between her and the nearest enemy combatant…..though there had to be a reason for that. It most likely helped that her longsword was curved and extremely light, allowing her to attack at angles that were awkward compared to a standard blade. Her elaborate outfit made her seem to shine in the light as she danced around her enemies, attacking when it was safe and retreating when it was unsuitable to do so. Her attackers seemed almost sorry to be attempting to attack someone who looked so innocent, then were promptly cut down when they let up even an inch. Her red face and whimpering made it almost cute….almost. Just like a blood-stained sword is cute…..almost.

Koizumi was slightly different in his methods. He was focusing on taking out the guards that were trying to snipe us with muskets. He was running along the walls notching arrows and then snapping back to shoot an arrow directly into the barrel of a musket at the _instant_ they attempted to fire, causing the old-timey rifle to explode in their hands, causing shrapnel to shoot into their….well….everything, to put it nicely. If whoever designed those rifles is still alive, they're going to be receiving a beating.

Emiri was bludgeoning her way through a crowd of guards with her rifle, swinging around in broad circles, using her inertia to plow through the much larger adversaries, stopping to fire a round into the mayhem when she could, to great effect. Her ammo bag, which was also heavy, swung from her back and hit anyone trying to hit her from behind. I jumped up to get a look from amidst the chaos, only to almost get an early haircut from a laser that flew by.

It had appeared that Tsuruya's Gun's laser that it fired had a limited half-life, after which point it degraded…..into smaller lasers. Yes, that's lasers, as in plural. These were now pinging into and off of whatever surface they hit, creating a deadly green disco ball effect. You know, almost like the walls are the disco balls, the lasers are the blacklights, and we're the ravers who dropped acid one too many times this morning.

Landing back amongst the chaos, I was pushed aside by Tsuruya herself, who was pushed into me because she was holding Asakura's foot, which was covered in pulsating energy and attempting to blast Tsuruya out of the way. She responded by flipping her bodily over her soldier, using her adversary to clear the surrounding area, before getting kicked in the face by Asakura's other foot, causing her to go flying into the crowd of guards that were just now starting to thin out after several minutes of absolutely one-sided fighting.

They were ill-equipped, wore almost no armor, and their sheer numbers did not make up for their poor combat training…..though, to be honest, anyone who tries to fight Haruhi better have a few Chekov's Guns, just in case. Not that it would matter, anyways. Being pseudo-God-like, she'd erase said person from existence, or turn them into a clown. Haha….clowns are funny.

The pile of bodies on the side of the room was slowly starting to overflow onto the lowest walkway, so I did the safest thing and ran up the pile of dead and/or sobbing man-flesh, snapping few fingers along the way, vaulted onto the walkway, and started opening the rooms one by one, until I found what I was looking for.

A curved walkway full of even more guards, but at the end an elevator could be seen. Bingo. Or maybe even cribbage! Bridge, then?

They all locked eyes with me as one, and I knew this was going to be fun.

A tonfa that lodged itself in the wall half an inch from my face further confirmed this statement.

"So we meet again, my young grasshopper." An old dude in a brown robe stepped out from behind the curve in the hallway.

"Wait, you're not Bruce Lee!"

I cocked my head to the side. "Who the hell is Bruce Lee?"

He shakes his head in dismay, turning to the guards behind him. "Are we on the wrong movie set again?"

The guards just shrugged, and I realized they were all Caucasian men wearing large amounts of makeup. How in the hell…? Whatever. I've got some ass to kick!

"Bitches, I have logic!" I uttered these words of vast amounts of sense as I lunged for the group of guards, who unfortunately parted at that exact moment and I got a mouth full of old man-foot.

"You have much to learn, young one! I am a master of karate!" I bit down on his foot, fighting back my gag reflex and feeling my eyes tear up as I did so, and watch the heavily beautified men form a circle around me.

"For HONOOOOOOOR!" They all shouted in unison, practically deafening m as I backed up to the ring of suits, trying to look over them to the elevator, not wanting to lose sight of it.

Of course, as soon as I did this I was shoved to the ground by said suits and roughed up a bit before I snapped my leg back and broke a guy's leg, who fell to the floor while screaming in agony. I was allowed to get up while a couple more guys dragged him away, out of sight and hearing distance.

They backed away even more after that, apparently terrified that I just broke a bone in one kick.

The old man drew a bad-ass sword from underneath his robes, settled into a defensive stance.

"You may be powerful young one, but that will lead to your ultimate undoing. Now, fight me, in an honorable duel! Winner takes all….including the other's life. Do you accept, young one?"

I nodded, unsheathing my chakram, because, shit, if I'm gonna murder someone today, mine as well do it in the coolest way possible. Though, if what happened in the last hour is any indication, I'm gonna need a goddamn mass grave dug to bury all the poor bastards I offed today I think I'm in the 60ish range now? It's pretty bad. Oof, and imagine how my back is going to feel after that?

With all of my daydreaming, I almost didn't catch the sword rocketing towards my face, deflecting it to the side with a chakram while spinning and crouching to the ground, sending the blade off course. I jumped up as I rotated, coming up and slicing at the man with my other chakram. He rolled backwards out of the way, using his blade as leverage and managed to land a kick into my gut as I descended.

I hit the ground on my back, rolling to the side to avoid the next swing, which would have bisected me vertically if I hadn't moved. Oh, I don't think I mentioned, by "bad-ass sword" I meant a goddamn great sword. Like, somewhere, a museum is wondering who stole the leg bone to their T-Rex. Instead of attacking again immediately, I backed up a couple feet and the old man did the same. He looked to be in prime condition, but I was breathing hard. Then I thought "Hey, I'm not gonna get shown up by this old sack of fiber bars, lets crank this up to eleven!" And crank it up to eleven I did.

I began to hum the tune "Happy Birthday", which confused everyone significantly. Perfect.

I proceeded to throw my chakram at the old man, who dodged one but took a cut to the cheek from the second one, and I lunged forward and began to launch a flurry of punches against him. His big-ass sword was useless this close, so he dropped it and attempted o block my blows with his large, muscular forearms. I wasn't going to have any of that though, so I jumped up (remember the 8 inch height difference) and headbutted him in the face, getting the oh-so-satisfying _CRUNCH_ from his nose snapping, along with the trickle of his blood into my hair.

Well, I'll need to wash extra-thoroughly to get that out of there.

I finally finished my rousing rendition of Happy Birthday while kicking him in the stomach until he puked, OG style. He was trying to run away from me at this point, crawling through his guards and attempting to get to the elevator.

"Hey, winner takes all, right? Don't run away now, you could still win!" I didn't do much to reinforce this though, because I ran up to him while he was still crawling on the floor and crushed his fingers underfoot. At this point he was bleeding and broken, but still going. I grabbed him by the foot, snapping both of his big toes backwards, eliciting a girlish scream this time, and dragging him back to where my chakram were. I dropped him there, and he didn't even try to move. He looked up to me and forced a weak smile.

"Jokes….on you….girl…." Blood trickled from the corners of his mouse, and he coughed up a nice spatter of blood onto my shoes.

I grabbed him by the throat and forced him to his feet.

"Yeah, and how's that? Don't say the blood on my shoes, because I know a really good cleaner who'll make that shit like-new."

His robes fell to the ground, revealing a bomb strapped to his chest, with an analog clock slowly ticking towards zero. There was less than 20 seconds left on it.

"OH SHIIIIIT!" I threw him behind me and ran for the elevator, prying open the gates with my bare hands, grateful that I had grabbed both chakram with one hand before choking him out. The doors shut and the elevator began to ascend oh-so-slowly, with the guards sprinting like hell to get out the other exit. As I was finally getting to the next floor, an explosion threw me from my feet, and the floor of the elevator got a bit hot.

I was now going towards an unknown location higher up, and therefore closer to that conniving motherfucker….I mean the target that's worth the same dead as he is alive. Keep that in mind. I find that to be an _extremely _comforting thought.

But really, a goddamn suiciding karate master who was tricked into thinking it was a movie set? What in the HELL is happening….though, if it Asakura was involved, it becomes just that much more plausible. On the A to F scale of Criminally Insane, she's an SSS+. Which is about 5 grades above A. That's REALLLLLYYYY crazy, even by my standards.

The elevator stopped moving, but the doors didn't open, so I said "screw it", and kicked them open. They weren't made terribly well, and kind of fell over out of their tracks.

I was in a hallway leading up to an entirely glass room. There were no guards, and it looked safe. Of course, safe is in the eye of the beer-holder, or something, so I threw a chakram out to test the waters.

I got LASERS in return. As in, lasers shot across the hallway and moved down the hallway slowly, first only horizontally, but then in different patterns, until they reached the end of the hallway. Then it started again. Watching it for a minute, I figured out that no more than 4 lasers were active at any one time, leading to a relatively safe method of traversing the hallway.

Halfway down the hallway, more lasers activated, making crawling prone not good unless I liked being sliced up into party-sized, edible Yuki-cubes, so I got up and began to run towards the lasers, at the last second lunging forwards and going right through the middle of the lasers that separated the hallway ino many, many small sections. I used my momentum to land in a roll, springing back up and running to the end of the hallway, where everything was glass. Even the doors.

The locked doors were made of glass. Good design choice. It might even be bullet-proof. But nothing is _Yuki-proof_!

Before the lasers came around again, I took out my corrosive poison bracelet and squeezed out a couple of drops on the lock mechanism, which was the only thing not made of glass on the wall. On the other side of the door, I could see a person lying on a couch facing away from me watching the chaos occurring below. Tsuruya and Asakura were still going at it, and the rest of the SOS Brigade was just kind of sitting there watching. The guards were piled two stories high. The person lying on the cough was being fed food from two women in chains.

Slaves.

Not on my non-existent watch. Deciding the corrosive shit had done its' work, I used my head as a foot and slammed it through the door, shattering the whole wall into a million pieces. I was wearing a hat, so I didn't give a shit about getting glass in me.

I ran across the room, which was actually suspended from the ceiling by thin wires, and kicked the asshole on the couch as hard as possible in the back of the head. He fell off the couch and hit the floor, and due to the _very _limited length of the chains restraining the emaciated young women, they were pulled forward too, resulting in a scrambling mess of limbs. I pulled the asshole up and sliced the chains off with one sweep of my blades, causing the two girls to scramble away to the opposite end of the room.

"Peek-a-boo, you son-of-a-fucking-bitch." My tone was cold enough to freeze a penguin in the middle of Antarctica, and the look in his eyes was one of pure fear. I lifted him even higher and pushed one chakram against his stomach; he wasn't wearing a shirt, which revealed a flabby physique, with little to no muscle tone. It cut into his stomach slowly, piercing just the first few layers of skin. He screamed in pain and writhed to get out of the grip, but I wasn't about to stop. I pushed it even harder, finally hitting some real flesh, and his screams echoed around the room, and I laughed.

**A/N: This section has been moved to the M-rated story "Vapor: The Bad Bits",due to the excessive violence and gore depicted. A necessary evil, I promise!**

I stood up after "playing with my food", so to speak, taking his heart with me, and looking back across the room to the dead slaves…..wait. Dead slaves? I didn't do that, did I?

I walked over to them, inspecting them. They both had collars on them, and upon inspection, I found vials of neurotoxin on them. They had been killed a few minutes after the proximity senor had indicated they were "away" from their owner. That's just sick. Well, actually, that's just par for the course at this point.

I got up from them, walking over to the door, where the rest of the SOS Brigade was coming down the hallway.

"Yuki, is…..what. In the HELL happened?" Haruhi surveyed the room, noting the blood absolutely everywhere, particularly all over Yuki, who was holding a mass of red in her left hand, and the body that had been ripped open in front of a shattered glass wall.

"What's that in your hand…..?"

Yuki looked down at the object. "Renji's heart. Do you want it?"

Everyone recoiled from it, except Emiri. She just laughed like there was no tomorrow.

"He's dead, in case you're asking." Yuki said this in an almost offhand fashion, waving at his corpse with the guy's own heart.

Everyone looked to his corpse, or rather, what was left of it. Tsuruya, who was more bruised than the rest of them, whispered to Mikuru.

"Are you _sure _she's okay? I just think she's a bit off…"

Mikuru quickly whispered back. "Well, yeah, but do you want to tell her that yourself?"

Everyone was silent at this. Yuki was humming one of the openings from Death Note while swishing her hair back and forth, totally oblivious to what everyone else was doing.

Everyone collectively sweatdropped, and they began to leave, telling Yuki to grab Renji's body as they left. She complied, dragging it along the floor in front of everyone, creating a thick stream of blood on the floor that they all had to walk over to get out. They took the elevator directly to the bottom floor, which looked like a bomb had hit it, with blackened craters everywhere and beginning to smell like a cemetery, because….you know.

Asakura Ryoko was gagged and bound on the floor mere feet from the wheel of partially-eaten smoked cheese, which Tsuruya picked up and waved in her face, much to Asakura's chagrin.

Tsuruya picked up Asakura in a fireman's carry, cheese in hand. Everyone else exited the now lifeless egg, Yuki going last. Everyone looked to the top of the ravine that they were now in.

"So, Haruhi….have you actually thought of how to get us out of here?" Kyon was looking none too happy about the thought of being stuck down in the middle of nowhere.

Haruhi walked into the center of the group and took out her spellbook.

"Kyon, you forgetful Fox!

Level 75: Teleport to Collection!"

A mystical blue light engulfed the entire group, and a split second later, they were inside a large white room that had a man standing at the end of it with a magnifying glass.

"Ah, Suzumiya-san, what assignment have you completed…oh dear, that's quite a grizzly specimen you have here."

The whole motley crew traipsed to the end where the man eyed the heart in Yuki's hand.

"I say Suzumiya-san, that's from that scoundrel from the Under! Five hundred thousand, dead or alive, indeed! Will I be making the payment payable to your club, or to individuals?"

Yuki suddenly joined the conversation.

"I want to keep the heart as a trophy, and I'll be taking half of the reward for myself, and the rest of it to Haruhi personally."

After that, she turned around and walked behind everyone else, standing behind Emiri, petting the human heart she held. Haruhi sighed.

"Alright then, you heard her. Thanks for getting this out of the way Alfred, I'll see you next time."

The man bowed, before turning and vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Haruhi held up her spellbook once again, saying with much less enthusiasm.

"Level 45: Group Teleport to Home!"

Everyone was returned to their homes, and Yuki was extremely tired, despite it only being about 3 P.M. She put her new prize in a jar of clear embalming fluid that Emiri had had for some reason, and washed up, changed into her pajamas, then promptly fell asleep upon hitting the pillows.

**A/N: Okay, that was quite delayed, and quite f***ed up. I'm not even sure what was going through my mind as this point. Therefore, I have moved the section of conflicting interests to a new story titled "Vapor: The Bad Bits", which will only contain the scenes which are deemed too graphic for the main story.  
**

**Well, at least the chapter was longer than usual, right? The loose ends like Ryoko and the cheese and everything else will get tied up next chapter. This arc is over(more like mini-arc), and the next one is still a few chapters away…**


	13. Psychiatric evaluations cost extra

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 13: Psychiatric evaluations cost extra

**A/N: Well, after attempting to do this chapter a dozen and one ways, I had a breakthrough. Hope you like it, and be sure to leave a review! It would make me a very happy shazbot!  
**

**Now, on with the plot! (~what little there is, of course~)**

Everything was black. I was standing, I think, so I wasn't on my bed. Unless, of course, a baby dragon had removed me from my bed and shit all over it, allowing said fecal matter to harden before placing me back on it. Why a dragon? Their dung is odorless of course!

Okay, it's still black. Not good. I looked around, or attempted to, anyways, and only saw more inky blackness. But it wasn't the type of black you see when it's dark out. It was just there, as though someone had replaced all of the colors of the visible spectrum with it.

I attempted to shout out, to see, or rather, hear how large this space was.

"Hello?" My voice sounded tinny, almost weak, and there was no echo. Either this space was extraordinarily well sound-proofed, or it was so large there wasn't a possibility to produce an echo.

I looked at myself. I was still dressed in my outfit from...when exactly? I have no idea how long I've been in this place, but I'll just assume yesterday, if only to fool myself. It was a gruesome sight, blood still painting the orange vest bright red, and the blood seemed to gleam in the lack of light, or maybe the blood was just smiling at me, taunting me for what I have done.

"Well hello there, I didn't expect to see you so soon." I looked around for the source of the voice, low and monotonous, but could not find it.

"Up here, darling." I looked up. Above me, maybe a meter or two, was me. Like, exactly the same appearance, outfit, it was smiling. Smiling in a way I don't ever smile...at least, I don't think I smile in that way ever. I hope I don't. It's scaring me.

I floated down to meet me, standing in front of me, looking at myself. It was then that I noticed small differences. It was mostly in the eyes. The other me had eyes that shone like the primal fury of one million lions, the ferocity of a thousand boars, and the insanity of one hundred mimes. Yes, mimes.

She just stood there, grinning at me like there was some sort of joke that I was not a part of, and it was about me. So I took the initiative.

"Where are we...and who are you?" The other me blinked once, before breaking into a laugh that was neither warming nor hearty. It was mocking me. I stood still, waiting for myself to stop the callous sounds from emanating from her throat...my throat?

"Where are we? Oh, that's a good one. You're in your own head, you silly tanooki! We attacked your friend with the peppermint hair, and she knocked us out with a frying pan! It was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen!"

We? I?...I have a feeling this is going to be messy, complicated, and none too enjoyable.

As though she heard me, she replied to my unspoken thoughts.

"My, my, that's a misconception! Depending on how we handle this, it will be a ton of fun and quite enjoyable...but the messier the better! As long as we don't have to clean it up!" She (I?) ended that with a little giggle, as though that sort of thing made me laugh.

"Oh, I'll ignore that little remark, which was just hiding the truth. I'm you, and you're me, to answer your previous question. We are two sides of the same coin. You are the more sane and calculating one, while I'm the murderous, violent, insane part that kicks ass, takes names, chews bubblegum, rides dinosaurs, and eats ceramic coffee mugs. Every person has two conscious facets of their personality, but due to our little pseudo-dimensional travel, and our mental instability following the time loop that lasted nearly 1,500 years, I was unlodged from your subconscious and became an active part of your psyche. This space we are in right now is where I resided prior to my awakening. Dreadful place, isn't it?"

My thought process ground to a halt. My insanity was just...me? There wasn't any evil machinations to turn me into a Terminator or some shit? Awww, that's actually kind of disappointing.

I ignored my comment about the inside of my head, instead focusing on the me that wasn't very nice.

"Hey! I can be nice...when I'm not tearing out fleshy thing, anyways. But I do quite like doing that."

Yup, she can hear my thoughts.

Other me giggled and smiled like a little schoolgirl...I hope I never look like that ever. Someone _please _hit me with a large blunt object if I do that outside the dark confines of my own head. It'll be for my, her...our...it's...us'es own good? I'm going to go insane with these pronouns!

Other me began to float up and get dim, as though answering my own plea.

Other me looked down at me with a wink and clicked her heels.

"No such luck, onii-chan! We're waking up, and I'm the main girl in charge right now. You'll be able to see what happens in the world, but I'm making the moves here."

And then she was gone, and the blackness of the room was slowly replaced by the glaring lights of a lamp shining in my face.

I was inside my own head, watching for what an alternate personality of me was going to do while in complete and utter control of my body. I had but two words for myself.

"Well shit." Seeing myself began to blink and move, I sighed, sitting down cross-legged and preparing to watch what would no doubt be quite a show.

Turns out I was right.

**A/N: This is a dreadfully short chapter, and I apologize for that. I couldn't figure out how to get the next set of events into the chapter without it flowing badly, so it's chopped into two chapters. Of course, once my current fic (The Library) is done, and it will be soon, Vapor will be receiving the love again, along with another fic idea that is so cracky it may be legitimate, and another brutal-palooza. **

**Cheers,**

**Everyone's favorite psycho**


	14. Ceramic is quite Tasty

The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 14: Ceramic is quite Tasty

**A/N: Well, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Last updated nearly 3 months ago...shame on me. But here I am! I think my writing has improved a bit since then as well, and maybe that's just what this story needed. I apologize that this isn't as long as the previous chapters, but it's a start! I need to immerse myself in the plot again, and I never made backstory docs for this...which I will have began to rectify...**

In any case, hope you enjoy the chapter, and on with the plot! (Old habits die hard, hehe.)

"Hey, I think she's waking up; you hit her pretty hard, you know." Emiri was resting her chin against the barrel of her cannon, which was propped against the couch she was leaning on. The person in question that who was talking to her was none other than Sasaki, who was shaking her head and giggling a little bit, because she was just as (in)sane as the rest of them.

Her expression didn't change, but she leaned forward, taking her chin off of the large projectile weapon.

"I don't think you get it, Sasaki. She was speaking gibberish and attempted to attack me. There's something seriously wrong with her. Not to mention the fact that she ripped apart a guy that we were after and etched her name into his stomach with a goddamn blade. While the guy was still alive. That's not the worst part, even! I bet you heard it from Haruhi, but I'll reiterate for you; she minced his ribcage and ripped his fucking heart out. You cannot tell me that she is in an okay mental state after witnessing that."

I sat up suddenly, surprising the both of them. Oh, I was going to enjoy this.

"I enjoyed it, actually." As one, their faces turned to stare at me. Emiri was holding an expression bordering between disgust and bewilderment, and Sasaki was on the line between laughter and giddiness. I was also perfectly aware of how crazy Sasaki was normally, and now, she was just the type of person to get to sympathize with me.

"Got any ceramics? I'm hungry." Hey, I wasn't kidding when I said ceramic is tasty; it has quite a pleasant aftertaste if it doesn't cut your throat on the way down.

"You...I'm fucking done. You get your mental demons straightened out with her, I'm off to see Haruhi and the others. Don't burn the house down, or something. I'll pay you when you're done Sasaki." With that, she got off the couch, picked up her weapon, and left the house, closing the door behind her with a resounding bang.

Sasaki turned to me, her expression changing completely. I'm either going to enjoy this immensely, or beg for the sweet release of death by the time this is over. I'm hoping it's the first one, because I haven't gotten drunk in months. The SOS Brigade sure knows how to hold a party, let me tell you! Sure there was that murder shenanigans afterwards, but it was totally worth it. I think I read the whole Lord of the Rings series while those idiots were off trying to solve the non-existent mystery. Hobbits over hermaphrodites any day...what, that doesn't make any sense? Who ever said it was going to? Not me.

"Okay, in all seriousness, what the hell has your panties in a bunch? You're normally pretty weird anyways, but I don't think that homicide and whatnot fits the bill." I'm weird? I'm weird?!...wait, yeah I am. Okay, I'm letting this slide 'other-God', but I better get something out of this.

"I dunno lady, but I know what I do want; to get absolutely shit-faced, and I hear from Haruhi that you have quite the collection of fine wines..." Her face brightened, and I bet you a cat and a top hat that we were going to both get paid today, but for me, the only payment I need is booze, because when "I" wake up, I'll be safe inside my own head, so onii-chan will be the only one feeling that awesome hangover! Though I'm totally vomiting all over her rug; that looks like 14th century Turkish shag to me!

She smacked herself in the face, making a nice imprint of her hand on her face. Her index finger is the same length as her middle finger...how odd. Doesn't that mean you like to eat plain Nutella or something?

"So you're not going to tell me what's wrong with you until you get drunk...alright, whatever, I'll just scare the answers out of you afterwards." She led me to a door, which turned out to be a stairway into a dank, dark basement, that was, curiously enough, emitting various animal sounds. She clapped her hands twice, and magic, purple candles came to life all around the large room.

There were animal cages along the wall, but each one seemed weirder than the last. There were dinosaurs with boxing gloves, a kangaroo in a tuxedo, a penguin that was breathing fire, and countless others.

But that wasn't the craziest, or coolest part.

In the middle of it all, was a boxing ring, and a steel-mesh cage suspended above it, where cables hung out of sight, ready to drop the cage on the ring, presumably.

In between a set elephants whose trunks were tied together and an aquarium full of elves wearing snorkels, there was the largest rack of wine, spirits, and other assorted booze I had ever seen. That's saying something, too. The whole place reeked of repeatedly distilled flavors, and I was salivating by the time my eyes adjusted to the multiple light sources.

Sasaki led me to the rack, and I could feel a thousand eyes on me.

"Well, you can have anything you want from here, but if you do, I'm gonna get you good and wasted, and then you're fighting something from this room...of my choice, of course."

Of course. Hrm, this was a tough choice...not really; I'm going to get awesomely wrecked, and then I'm going to get my ass kicked by a chinchilla that was the size of a Doberman and had teeth that could easily crush a bull's skull.

I think that's a pretty fair comparison.

"Alright, you drive a hard bargain, lady! I'll have some of your finest French champagne, to start."

After a few shots of that, I could feel the buzz, but I didn't give a shit; I wouldn't have to deal with any of this when I woke up anyways!

Wait, is that a dinosaur wearing boxing gloves?

Wait, wait, wait, hold on here. I'm going to be fighting something in here? Oh, damnit.

"Can I...can I b..back out now, by any-hick-chance?" The floor started to spin, so I spun too, only to be caught by the girl giving me the funny drinks.

"No such luck, Nagato-san. My pets are hungry, and you need to be taught a lesson about ripping people apart without their permission. Unlike you, I have your permission for this, and now that your judgement is impaired by the booze, I can't have you changing your mind on me now. Besides, I'm a great healer; I taught Tsuruya-san, after all!"

Nonononono, that's not any good of a warning! I'm feeling for my soon to be non-existent limbs!

...

I woke up with a pounding headache and the deep desire to vomit all over myself, after the vision through my crazy side's eyes got really blurry, and I was quite dismayed to find myself in a brightly lit square, occupied by nothing else but a Velociraptor wearing boxing gloves and dancing around, like it was ready to fight me.

Looking blearily around to what was outside, I saw a crowd of people cheering and booing, and in the corner, I could see Sasaki taking large sums of money from people entering through a staircase.

Oh, goddamnit.

I got up shakily, using the ropes as support, feeling my legs wobble; I was drunk. Thanks a lot, asshole me. I wouldn't do that to me if I were you!

'You're welcome, onii-chan!' My other half responded from in my head, while also giving me a mental reassurance that even when I inevitably lost, I'd eventually wake up in one piece. That's worth so much to me, surely. My sarcasm skills are improving, I think!

Am I reading this right? Sasaki taught Tsuruya how to heal people? Wow, we're screwed!  
'Yes, I realized this, but it was too late to stop it from happening. She tied me up and began letting people in; she has these exhibition matches all the time apparently, and people pay big money to see some exotic animals fight, Tonight, we're the exotic ones!'

I hate you so much right now. How was the wine, by the way? Feels like a million yen.

'Go get 'em tiger; it was pretty awesome, actually. Maybe you'll get some when she's putting us back together later tonight?' Yeah, real consoling thoughts there.

A bell rang somewhere nearby, and the crowd roared as the Velociraptor cracked its' neck, or made motions similar to that, and stepped forward.

I let go of the rope, only barely managing to stay upright, and noticed my daggers were still on my thighs.

Unhooking them, I held one in a reverse grip, not feeling as confident as I looked like a rave DJ who had gotten shitfaced drunk at an exotic animal fighting arena.

Here's to the rest of my life! Or, you know, the 5 or so minutes this is going to consist of. If I'm lucky.****

A/N: Well, that was pretty awesome, if I may say so myself. Sasaki has good booze and better animal fights. The Layman will remember that I mentioned the "boxing a dinosaur" idea in passing once upon a time. I'm totally rolling with it, because steampunk magic shenanigans. Plus, I need something for Yuki to get caught up with while Emiri and the rest of the SOS Brigade plan what the hell they should do about Yuki. Single quotes were other-Yuki after she got stuffed back into Yuki's head.

Expect more updates soon!

Ciao~

,  



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